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AMERICA TOMORROW
A Typical Christian Center
AMERICA TOMORROW
WHAT BAPTISTS ARK DOING FOS
THE CHILD LIFE OF THE NATION
EDITED BY
THE DEPARTMENT OF MISSIONARY EDUCATION
BOARD OF EDUCATION
OF THE
NORTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
276 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
PHILADELPHIA
THE JUDSON PRESS
BOSTON CHICAGO LOS ANGELES
KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO
t . ., . .**.,.
* * *
j>
Copyright, 1923, by
GILBERT N. BRINK, SECRETARY
Published August, 1923
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
711928
Hold, ye faint-hearted! Ye are not alone!
Into your worn-out ranks of weary men
Come mighty reinforcements, even now!
Look where the dawn is kindling in the east,
Brave with the glory of the better day,
A countless host, an endless host, all fresh,
With unstained banners and unsullied shields,
With shining swords that point to victory,
And great young hearts that know not how to fear-
The children come to save the weary world!
CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON.
FOREWORD
THE home-mission theme for 1923-24, "Saving
America Through Her Boys and Girls," should have
a stimulating influence upon all Christians of what- .
ever name as we face the challenging task ahead of
us. Baptists are sharing the responsibility for safe-
guarding and training the child life of the nation,
and this book seeks to set forth some of the mission-
ary agencies at work, some types of service, and
some significant results.
The purpose behind this book is to place at the
disposal of Baptists for use in mission-study classes,
church schools of missions, program meetings, lec-
ture courses, and institute programs, a body of dis-
tinctly Baptist material to be used in the study of
the interdenominational home-mission theme, " Sav-
ing America Through Her Boys and Girls."
The material has been prepared from the mission-
ary point of view, to disclose the particular contri-
bution which Baptist home-mission enterprises are
making, and does not, therefore, attempt to discuss
additional valuable and indispensable Baptist agen-
cies at work under other than distinctly missionary
auspices.
FOREWORD
We are greatly indebted to the authors of these
various statements for the generous services which
they have rendered in making this book possible.
WILLIAM A. HILL,
Secretary of Missionary Education,
Baptist Board of Education.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGB
FOREWORD yii
I. THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND THE
CHURCH 1
II. BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN THE SOUTH 13
1. The Training of a Race for a Nation's
Life 15
2. The Autobiography of a Negro 30
3. The First Americans and the Newer
America 33
III. THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 41
IV. CHRIST AT THE CENTER. 65
V. CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 83
VI. ORPHANAGES 105
1. What Kodiak Means to the Children
of Alaska 107
2. " Murrow," a Home for Orphaned In-
dian Children 113
3. An Institution With a Heart ........ 118
VII. WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 123
VIII. SAVING THE CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 147
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
IX. THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN OF THE
CHURCH 167
X. MISSIONARY AGENCIES AMONG YOUNG
PEOPLE 189
1. World Wide Guild 191
2. The Children's World Crusade. ...' 195
3. The Bible School as a Missionary
Agency 200
4. The Young People's Society as a Mis-
sionary Agency 203
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A Typical Christian Center Frontispiece
Domestic Science Class at Spelman Seminary,
Atlanta, Ga. . . . 22
Group of Bacone Students 34
Joanna P. Moore 46
Training Class Starting Home 52
Sunshine Band Girls 60
Tenement in New York City 68
Clinic in Christian Center. 70
Nap Time in the Nursery 72
Grace before Meat 76
Child Life in the Lonely Areas 94
Future Snake Chief 96
_ , ,
Rev. John M. P. Martin Points Out a Neglected
Field 100
Orphanage Girls on a Hike. ; 112
Dr. J. S. Murrow 114
Group of Children from Murrow Orphanage ... 116
Little Sisters, (Hear Me) 118
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
George Ernest Barrow Blackman 120
The Lost Sheep 122
Roof Garden, Chinese Day School. 126
Chinese Woman Going to English Lesson ...... 134
Scene in Japanese Woman's Home, Seattle 138
Rapid Transit in Cuba 150
Central American Boys Who Lack a Chance .... 152
Central American Boys and Girls Who Have a
Chance , 155
The Products of Christian Education 159
THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND
THE CHURCH
THE HOME, THE SCHOOL, AND THE CHURCH
By FRANK A. SMITH
If America is to be won to Christ, it will be
through the boys and girls of today who are to be
the men and women of tomorrow. The ringing
words of Theodore Roosevelt still echo a great con-
clusion, " Unless this country is made a good place
for all of us to live in, it won't be a good place for
any of us to live in."
" Saving America Through Her Boys and Girls "
has become already a phrase of unusual signifi-
cance. It indicates a fine Christian strategy in the
mapping out of a new campaign for a better Amer-
ica, and it has in it a note of courage and optimism.
What hopes for the future may we not cherish if we
erect adequate moral and spiritual safeguards about
the child life of the nation ! No true measurements
of such a task may be made which do not include
the home, the school, and the church. Even as no
history of America's progress can be written with-
out recognizing their importance, so no new national
ideals may be realized without the larger use of
these honored and sacred institutions.
Ours is the superb opportunity to direct the
energies of this host of boys and girls entrusted to
our supervision. Just in proportion as they catch
the vision of the needs of their country and the
3
AMERICA TOMORROW
world, and dedicate themselves to the establishment
of Christ's kingdom, so far will the people of our
land be influenced by Christian ideals and motives.
It devolves upon our generation to afford for our
children a background of inter-racial sympathy and
friendliness from which they may view without em-
barrassment the goal of universal Christian brother-
hood.
The home-mission enterprise " is an adventure in
friendship," in that it seeks to bring together, for
the saving of America, those groups that are widely
separated by racial, social, provincial, and indus-
trial differences. There is no task more difficult
than this in the whole range of our organized Chris-
tian activities, and no test of our Christian profes-
sion that is more searching ; and yet if we really be-
lieve that Jesus meant what he said, "All ye are
brethren," we must try to create an atmosphere that
will make it less difficult for our boys and girls to
advance toward this goal than it has been for those
who are older.
The home is not only the door of entrance into
this coveted future, but it commands all other ap-
proaches. Here in the home are laid the first founda-
tions, here are made the impressions which are most
enduring, and here is the authority which is not yet
challenged. Here the child finds his first social
contacts, learns the sacredness of other lives, feels
the pressure of social customs, and becomes familiar
with the interests of others. If the atmosphere of
this home is Christian, then Christian attitudes to-
ward others will become a normal thing which
HOME, SCHOOL, AND CHURCH
affects behavior and leads to generous service. The
home is the first home-mission field, and hence here
is the first contact which our young people have in
the task of saving America. If the child is not
taught here to respect the rights of others and to
reverence the relations that enable them to live to-
gether in harmony, there is small chance of absorb-
ing it elsewhere or of stumbling upon it by chance
later. The degree to which the home recognizes its
responsibility, and the place it gives to Christian
values and ideals, will determine more than any
other factor how far America will be Christian in
the next generation. The use of national nicknames,
already recognized as unchristian, must be banished
from all family conversations, as not only coarse,
but inimical to those mutual understandings which
it is essential that those of different ideas shall
possess. To cleanse the speech of the home from
words that are divisive is the first step toward
living and working together to save America.
With a population as diverse and complex as that
in our land, the saving of America will demand a
good understanding of many peoples and many inter-
ests. The public schools furnish the best training for
an appreciation of the good qualities of others, the
proper valuation of their peculiarities, and a knowl-
edge of those motives that influence and of those
ideals that differ. All these are necessary if we are
to present the gospel in a way that will win the com-
ing generation to Christ. The public school is a
real home-mission contact because the scholars are
less homogeneous than those of the private school, and
AMERICA TOMORROW
widely varying classes and races and creeds and in-
terests mingle. The scholars enter into competitions
of scholarship that are incentives and that command
respect. They play together enough to make ad-
justments to widely varying angles of life, and when
people play together they have learned the first
lesson in working together. School activities,
athletic teams, debating societies, and other in-
terests are unmindful of the social barriers that
exist outside because it is all for the honor of " our
school." This healthy team-work brings into
mutual understanding those who naturally would be
strangers, and while it is true that socially these
elements may not mingle, it is equally true that
within the limits of any single race there are social
distinctions quite as severe.
The public school is the greatest agency of Amer-
icanization that we have because it acquaints those
whose traditions of race and culture and govern-
ment are European with our own splendid heritage.
The birthdays of great Americans have an almost
inconceivable grip on the children of the foreign-
born. The commemorations of birthdays of our
national heroes, the anniversaries of great events,
find them ready to enter into the spirit. It is re-
freshing to hear a boy of Italian parentage wax
eloquent on " What Abraham Lincoln means to me,"
while Fourth of July, a day dear to every American
heart, cannot be celebrated without mention of
Lafayette, the Frenchman, Stueben, the German,
Pulaski, the Pole. Our schools might do well to go
further and provide opportunities for sharing their
HOME, SCHOOL, AND CHURCH
heritage. If the European backgrounds of the great
racial groups that compose our population were
better understood, we would appreciate the con-
tribution which these races might make to our
national life. All the world is debtor to France for
her art, and for her science to Pasteur and Curie.
The music of Italy and of Poland, the literature of
Germany, and the gifts of other nations ought to
kindle good-will. Our boys and girls will think back
from these races they have touched into the need
and conscience of races and regions more remote,
so that the saving of America will appear as a
normal and necessary part of their life-work. Even
in localities where racial differences are almost un-
known, there exist religious and economic and in-
dustrial strains that when discussed by the older
people become subjects for heated argument among
the boys and girls of our schools.
There are human factors as well as divine powers
in the task of saving America. The young people
who are educated in our schools and the high-school
pupils who are members of Christian churches, have
an unparalleled home-mission opportunity. In their
every-day life they are the interpreters of American
Protestant Christianity to those with whom they
come in contact who, through remoteness or home
prejudice, fail to comprehend the finest elements of
our faith.
Here is a lad in a remote village who in his de-
sire for an education travels thirty-six miles every
day to the nearest high school, home conditions com-
pelling his return each evening. The village where
8 AMERICA TOMORROW
he lives can support preaching only three months
of the year and is a real home-mission field. The
women of a little colony of summer cottages in
the mountains became interested in the girls of the
small near-by farms. The vacant schoolhouse was
opened one day in the week with classes in millinery,
dressmaking, and embroidery, and especially friend-
ship; the young people of these cottages became
interested, a Sunday school was started, and, a sum-
mer later, a student pastor preached in the school-
house till the life of the whole region was trans-
formed. Here was a personal knowledge of the
rural problem of the Home Mission Society and of
the colporter work and the Sunday-school work of
the Publication Society. Missions had emerged
from books and become a living thing.
The church affords the widest possible contact
for our young people in saving America. It pro-
claims Jesus as " the living way." It tells men they
are brothers to each other, and men who are far
apart in their interest and needs, find a common
fellowship in the life of the church. The prevalent
impression that men of diverse interest or race can
be welded together only by the " popular " or " in-
stitutional " church, overlooks the fact that churches
of a different type are doing just that thing. One of
our fairly strong churches which is essentially a
family church, includes nine different nationalities
in its membership. Points of contact with home
missions are normal in such a church.
Missionary education is now a well-recognized
part of every church program. Mission-study books
HOME, SCHOOL, AND CHURCH
for all ages, missionary reading courses, mission-
study classes, summer assemblies, and winter insti-
tutes, all afford information, stimulate interest, and
lead to the consecration of many young lives to
Christian service.
A splendid amount of missionary literature has
been provided, and our magazine Missions is so
broad and comprehensive that it is vital to any well-
considered missionary program in any church.
In the church there are also special opportunities
for missionary service. Americanization has many
forms and affords many opportunities; classes to
teach English are open doors to friendly interest,
and this will lead on to the Saviour of men. The
need is so great and the work so appalling in its
magnitude, that a large amount of a part-time volun-
tary service will be demanded of our young people
in the near future, if America is to be saved. The
church by her fellowship, by her missionary edu-
cation, by the visualization of the work, by oppor-
tunities for service, can prepare the boys and girls
for their share in making America Christian and
lead them to dedicate their lives to definite forms of
Christian work.
" That is my home," remarked an intelligent
Negro physician in a Southern city to a Northern
visitor, who was looking over some photographs of
different homes in the community. It was a fine
brick structure, better in appearance than many of
the white residences there. The porch with its
broad approach spoke a welcome, and the flowers
in the yard told of the home-makers' interest. Com-
10 AMERICA TOMORROW
fort and good taste were manifest in the appear-
ance and style of architecture. "And that is the
sort of home I came from," continued the doctor
pointing to another photograph that of the familiar
rural Negro home. It was a rickety, one-room af-
fair with no windows. It spoke of the lack of thrift
and poor living conditions common in certain Negro
communities in the South.
Even when a boy working at odd jobs and picking
up a rather precarious living, Baker had the desire
for an education. With but little money in his
pocket, he walked to the Baptist mission school
in a neighboring town and began his education. It
was a hard struggle ; his previous schooling had been
very meager; his funds were always low, and the
work hard. Between his classes he worked around
the school and during the summer on neighboring
farms. But he completed the course and finished
with a creditable sum of money ahead. Then came
the purpose to study medicine, and there were sev-
eral years more of hard work and constant plodding.
But the day came when he began his work as a
blessing among his own people. He went in and
out among them as the Christian physician, his in-
dustry and skill attracted the attention of the white
people of the city, and his success brought confidence
in a way not common for colored men in the
South. And when the railroad found it necessary
to enlarge its great hospital which was located in
the city where he lived, they took one of the larger
wings, and designating it for the colored people put
Doctor Baker in charge. This was the transforma-
HOME, SCHOOL, AND CHURCH 11
tion of Baker. It is one of thousands of such in-
stances in our home-mission work.
A ringing challenge to American Christianity is
voiced in the following reverential appeal of W. E.
Doughty :
O America, America, stretching between the two great
seas, in whose heart flows the rich blood of many nations,
into whose mountain safes God has put riches of fabulous
amount, in whose plains the Almighty has planted the magic
genius that blossoms into harvests with which to feed the
hungry multitudes of earth, nursed by Puritan and Pilgrim,
defended by patriot and missionary, guided by the pillar of
cloud by day and of fire by night, sanctified by a faith as
pure as looks up to heaven from any land, O America, let thy
Master make thee a saviour of the nations ; let thy God flood
thee with a resistless passion for conquest; let thy Father
lead thee over mountains and seas, through fire and flood,
through sickness and pain, out to that great hour when all
men shall hear the call of Christ, and the last lonely soul
shall see the uplifted cross, and the whole round world be
bound back to the heart of God.
II
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS
IN THE SOUTH
II
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN THE SOUTH
1. THE TRAINING OF A RACE FOR A NATION'S LIFE
By CHARLES L. WHITE
Where the Path Began
Let us in our survey walk down the six decades
that begin February 27, 1862, when Rev. Howard
Osgood returned from Fortress Monroe and re-
ported the result of his investigations of the condi-
tions among Negroes to the Executive Committee
of The American Baptist Home Mission Society.
Our fathers, assembled in the historic meeting-house
in Providence, listened to the following report :
Resolved, That we .recommend the Society to take
immediate steps to supply with Christian instruction, by
means of missionaries and teachers, the emancipated slaves
whether in the District of Columbia or in other places held
by our forces and also to inaugurate a system of operations
for carrying the Gospel alike to free and bond throughout
the whole Southern section of our country, so fast and so
far as the progress of our arms and the restoration of law
and order shall open the way.
On the same day Rev. Isaac W. Brinkerhoff and
Rev. Jonathan W. Horton were commissioned to
labor among the Negroes on the Island of St. Helena,
S. C., and on September the sixteenth Doctor Peck,
for many years the Corresponding Secretary of the
Missionary Union, volunteered his services and was
commissioned to Beaufort. The work prospered,
15
16 AMERICA TOMORROW
and the colored church in Beaufort in 1867 reported
4,000 members, divided into four parishes, each
having a preacher who cooperated with a pastor.
Early in 1863 Rev. H. C. Fish, of New Jersey, on
behalf of the Board, examined the condition of the
freedmen in Washington and Alexandria. His re-
port stirred the hearts of Northern Baptists, for he
declared :
I found them helpless, hopeless, friendless; these poor
creatures appeal to us most loudly for assistance! Not a
man in the whole camp to care for their souls! Not a
teacher to instruct them even in the lowest branch of
learning! Few, if any, missionary fields, as we believe, make
a stronger demand upon our denomination today than that
here indicated. Difficult indeed is the problem. What are
we to do for the freedmen who are being thrown in increas-
ing numbers upon our hands? One thing is certain, they
must not be neglected. And upon whom else so clearly
rests this obligation as upon Northern Baptists?
Another Step Forward
In 1864, at the Annual Meeting, another step in
the policy of the Society was taken, and one which
under the constant blessing of God has endured to
the present time. This policy is reflected in these
words :
We must give assistance to our missionaries in the South,
to engage in such instruction of the colored people as will
enable them to read the Bible and to become self-supporting
and self-directing churches. The Board will gladly receive
all moneys contributed and designated for this purpose, and
appropriate the same agreeably to the wishes of the donors;
the moneys thus designated to be termed the Freedmen's
Fund.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 17
This action of the board thrilled the Baptists of
New England, and in the First Baptist Church in
Boston, October 26 of the same year, the New En-
gland State Convention appointed a Freedmen's
Committee, to be called the New England Freed-
men's Aid Commission, to advise and cooperate with
the Home Mission Board in raising funds and in
sending out and recommending suitable persons for
assistants in the South.
Everywhere interest deepened. Up to April, 1864,
several additional missionaries and fourteen assis-
tants had been appointed for the Southern field. In
1864, mission work was conducted at Norfolk, Va. ;
Alexandria ; Washington, D. C. ; Beaufort ; Memphis ;
Nashville ; Island No. 10, Tenn. ; and in New Orleans.
In May, 1865, the Society held its annual meeting
in St. Louis. The war was over. At that time
President Martin B. Anderson, of New York, said :
It has been asked, " What will you do with the Negroes? "
God does not require of us an answer to this. Our question
is, " What will we do FOR the Negro? " God will tell us,
when it pleaseth him, what to do with the Negro. Let us
do our work, and leave the rest to God. Let us organize
them into churches and Sunday schools; teach them to labor,
and to make of themselves men in every sense. God will do
the rest.
The Annual Report of the Board showed that
$4,978.69 had been received for the Freedmen's Fund
and the presence of 68 missionaries in twelve States.
That year the designated funds for the Freedmen
amounted to $21,386.26, and the total expenditure
was $40,000.
18 AMERICA TOMORROW
" That year it was decided that the most direct,
accessible, and effective way of teaching the mass of
colored people is by teaching the colored ministry."
It was further declared that the irregular instruc-
tion imparted by missionaries, while important, was
entirely inadequate, and that established institu-
tions were demanded. In this year, therefore, the
Society addressed itself to the Christian education
of the colored people and the creation of leadership
without which the Negro race would never have
reached the improved condition which it now enjoys.
Laying Foundations
In April, 1867, we began in earnest the purchase
of land, the erection of buildings, and the securing
of suitable equipment. Schools were established
in Washington, Nashville, New Orleans, Raleigh,
Richmond, Alexandria, Culpepper, Fredericksburg,
Williamsburg, Petersburg, Murfreesboro, Albany,
and Ashland, some of them with a view to per-
manency. In that year alone more than 300
preachers received instruction, ministers' and dea-
cons* institutes were held, 59 teachers were em-
ployed in day-schools for the education of the youth,
and 6,136 pupils were instructed. As the result of
the year's work many were converted, and a large
amount of missionary labor was performed by the
teachers in the communities in which the schools
were located. The fruitage of that year is seen also
in the commissioning of 30 colored teachers in im-
portant cities and districts in the Southern States,
and in the aiding of 97 colored Baptist churches
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 19
toward the support of their pastors or toward secur-
ing meeting-houses.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society and
the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission So-
ciety now own or assist 14 major and 5 secondary
institutions. The fourteen major schools l are dis-
tributed through the Southern States as follows:
Storer College, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia;
Virginia Union University and Hartshorn Me-
morial College, Richmond, Virginia; Shaw Univer-
sity, Raleigh, North Carolina ; Benedict College, Co-
lumbia, South Carolina ; Morehouse College and Spel-
man Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson College,
Jackson, Mississippi; Leland College, Baker, Loui-
siana; Bishop College, Marshall, Texas; Selma
University, Selma, Alabama; William J. Simmons
University, Louisville, Kentucky; Roger Williams
University, Nashville, Tennessee; Arkansas Baptist
College, Little Rock, Arkansas. The secondary
schools are: Mather School, Beaufort, South Caro-
lina; Coleman Academy, Gibsland, Louisiana;
Waters Normal Institute, Winton, North Carolina;
Americus Institute, Americus, Georgia; Florida
Normal and Industrial Institute, St. Augustine,
Florida.
The two Home Mission Societies have steadily
adhered to the training of the colored people as min-
isters and teachers, and for many years have been
preparing students for medicine, law, pharmacy,
business trades, home-making, and industry. We
1 A description of each one of these schools, by Dr. G. R. Hovey, will
be found in the appendix of " Race Grit " by Coe Hayne.
20 AMERICA TOMORROW
have combined the Christian culture of the heart
with the development of the mind and the training
of the*hand so that these schools may give an educa-
tion for efficiency that shall make the students re-
ceiving instruction sufficient unto every good work.
The Open Doors
We have not been able to close the doors to any
pupils who wish to receive an education in a Chris-
tian atmosphere, and in several of these institutions,
in order that teachers may qualify for the State
examinations, we have established training-schools,
where the future instructors of colored children may
have practise in teaching in the various grades.
This has been especially true in the schools located
in the large centers. All who visit these schools
are impressed with the facilities which we have been
able to furnish, with the thorough instruction that
is given, and with the immense contributions which
these have made to the education of the Negro
race. Thousands of well-qualified teachers have
gone forth from our schools into the country dis-
tricts, where each has been the center of an influence
that cannot be destroyed. In many of the communi-
ties where these teachers have gone, neighborhood
life has been transformed and almost transfigured
by the new ideals which our Christian pupils have
brought to parents and their children.
Wise Guides
President Maxson of Bishop College, out of his
experiences, reminds us that when the Negro is edu-
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 21
cated, as in the case of a member of any race, he is
removed from the liability side of the book and
placed on the asset side. Dr. George Rice Hovey has
compiled statistics showing that from our schools
have gone out approximately 5,000 ministers who
have become not only defenders of the faith but
defenders of the people, 10,000 teachers for all
grades of schools from college presidents to country-
school grade teachers, 700 physicians, 800 pharma-
cists and dentists, 150 lawyers, and all kinds of
welfare workers. Can we see this great army of
enlightened people at work in all parts of the land?
What dark corners they brighten! What minis-
tries to a hungering people! What guidance for
youthful feet! And what results the imagination
may picture!
Our graduates are taught to be good neighbors
as the first fruits of their companionship with the
Good Shepherd. Take the matter of teachers for
rural schools for whom there is an insistent and
ever-increasing demand. "The day of the Negro
public school in the South is at hand," declares
Doctor Hovey,
and the watchword of our schools in the South now is:
"Put your strength into the private schools already estab-
lished and into the public schools. Go into the smaller com-
munities and improve and build up the county and rural
schools." The time has come when every Negro child should
have a chance for grade work within reach of his own home,
and the united efforts of the Negro people can greatly
hasten the day when this will be true. Our Baptist con-
stituency will be glad to learn that our graduates are re-
sponding to this call.
22 AMERICA TOMORROW
Our schools are contributing immeasurably to the
national wealth and stability. Students trained by
our teachers go to their own communities and as
volunteers or as teachers organize clubs for farm
boys and girls in cooperation with the United States
Department of Agriculture and County Farm
Bureaus. The projects undertaken by the members
of the clubs are supervised by our specially trained
students. The work must measure up to national
standards whether the project is raising a pig,
setting a hen, growing potatoes or corn, or canning
fruit. The courses in cookery offered in our schools
have a direct bearing upon the health of this race.
The courses in sewing, dressmaking, millinery, bas-
ketry, bench-work, printing, laundering, and agri-
culture, as well as in the usual academic studies,
Christianized and directed sanely, contribute to the
development of a stable national life.
What better can we do for the men of the colored
race than to train them for Christian civic and in-
dustrial leadership, teaching them not only law,
medicine, theology, and literature, but how to make
their furniture, their houses, and their gardens?
What better education can be given a Negro girl
than how to study and teach the Bible, how to cook,
to make her hats and clothes, and keep her house
in order?
When a youth who lives in the " shadow of one
blue hill " climbs the hill, sees from its top the dis-
tant schoolhouse and goes forth to its gifts, he
returns to make life broad and deep and high on the
acres which he owns.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 23
The aspiration of colored youths for leadership
among their people was deeply impressed upon me
in a conversation I once had with a Negro student.
When I asked what he intended to do after he left
school, he said, " Be an engineer."
" A civil engineer? " I inquired.
" No, sir," he answered.
" A mechanical engineer? "
" No, sir."
" An electrical engineer? "
" No, sir."
With the other departments of engineering I knew
he was not familiar, and so I ventured as a last
question :
" What kind of an engineer do you intend to be-
come? "
And he replied, with a flash in his eye, " A chief
engineer."
I learned later that he was working hard as a fire-
man and hoped soon to secure a license as a sta-
tionary engineer.
Christian leadership in Christian service has been
our goal. Indeed, the world has long since climbed
above the mesa on which Doctor Johnson stood when
he cried with the plaudits of his generation, " Edu-
cation is needed solely for the embellishment of
life."
As in foreign missions, so in home missions, our
effort is to create leadership through Christian
schools. We cannot handicap the Negro race and
then ask it to equal us who are not handicapped.
Twenty years ago a colored boy walked a long dis-
24 AMERICA TOMORROW
tance to one of our schools, and four months later,
when he returned home for the Christmas holidays,
hardly able to read and write, the deacons of the
church insisted on calling him " Professor." His
head, however, was not turned, and after years of
diligent study he has become one of the leaders of
his race, long occupied a prominent pulpit, and has
been chosen as the head of an institution which has
six hundred students.
The organization of the Negro Baptists in Asso-
ciation, State and National Conventions, under
leadership of great ability, displays talents that we
should not minimize. Indeed in all the communities
in the South, where Negroes live, and they live
everywhere, and in all the Negro colonies in our
Northern cities, if you search out the men and women
of prominence who are in the van of educational,
social, and religious activities, you will find that
they with few exceptions have been students in the
mission schools of the South.
Culture and Service
It must be remembered that a large proportion
of the pupils in our schools are studying the elemen-
tary branches and do not pursue their studies to the
period of graduation, yet in this brief period they
become disciples of progress and are evangelists to
bring to the relatives and friends the proper con-
ceptions of religion and education which their
teachers have given to them. The pupil goes home
and realizes that life leads somewhere and that his
education makes him a trustee to his race.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 25
These schools for the most part have high-school
departments, and this signifies much in terms of
nation building through the boys and girls. The
high-school age is the time when children are most
susceptible to the religious appeal. It is the critical
age too, when ideals of human relationships are
determined. During this wonderful age, this dan-
gerous age, when the altruistic element is strongest,
our devoted teachers, whose own strength is drawn
from the everlasting hills, are in daily contact with
the boys and girls who tomorrow will have their
part in shaping the destiny of the Negro race in
America. In our schools thousands of the colored
youth of the South form a life comradeship with the
divine Master. Rarely does a student graduate from
any one of our schools who is not a professing Chris-
tian. At all of the schools revival meetings are held
during the academic year. They are evangelistic
agencies as well as educational institutions. The
one is not incidental to the other but a real part,
vitalizing and spiritualizing the work of the class-
room.
The Negro finds opponents among his people, but
they are those who are entrenched in superstition,
immorality, and prejudice, and these disintegrating
forces become decadent among all belated races
under the influence of religion and education.
The Negro by hundreds of thousands during the
past ten years, has been leaving his old cabin home
and the plantation in the South in answer to the
call of the North. No event in our national life
is quite parallel to the growth of the Negro popula-
26 AMERICA TOMORROW
tion in our Northern cities. Among these migrants
are the representatives of our colleges, secondary
and country schools taught by young men and
women trained in our institutions. Among them
are many who have grown up in churches in the
South served by pastors trained in our schools. It
does not require an exercise of the imagination to
picture the vast contribution these Christian agen-
cies in the South have made to the stable life of
Northern communities.
From an inspiring evening recently spent in Car-
negie Hall, in New York City, where Hampton
Institute gave a good account of its stewardship,
I returned home with my mind filled with fresh
proofs of a training that combines both culture and
efficiency. I realized that evening that the higher
education is one that lifts men higher, and the
highest education raises men to heights from which
they go down as Jesus did, to work for a world that
can be spiritually conquered only by the industry
and patience of those whose hearts are pure and
whose hands are clean. I saw that night, as I had
never seen before, that the higher education is that
which gives its possessor a higher lifting power,
and that a liberal education is an education that
makes a man's life a generous contribution to his
day and race. In terms of character it makes him
efficient in the conquests of sin in his own life; in
terms of efficiency it makes him sufficient for every
good work in uplifting others. In terms of service
it qualifies him for the larger leadership of his
people.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 27
The Gifts of Love
We should all do honor to the teachers who have
gone from the North, and especially from New En-
gland, to teach the Negroes. The service at first was
glorified in the North, and minimized in the South,
but it is now appreciated more and more among the
white neighbors of our virile institutions. The
Negroes have long since risen up to call them
blessed, and Doctor Du Bois has said, " These Chris-
tian teachers have gone forth in the ninth crusade."
One has a strange feeling in his heart when he hears
an enemy of these schools say that the Negroes are
incapable of education and in the same conversa-
tion, a few minutes later, hears him assert that
educated Negroes are dangerous to society and the
jails are filled with them. Such opinions do not
weigh an ounce in the balance against those noble
expressions to the contrary which are constantly
and freely being given by the intelligent people of
the South.
Today these institutions are administered by men
of exceptional ability and taught by teachers of fine
mind and heart.
These teachers have labored with rare devotion
in the yielding clay which has often broken on the
potter's wheel till they have patiently made it whole
again. Their names are in the books that the angels
write, and will appear in letters of gold when the
history of Negro education is finally written. The
South has treated these Christian educators kindly
in later years, and many of our mission schools have
28 AMERICA TOMORROW
long had trustees and friends among the Southern
people, who have always ministered to these angels
in their midst and given to them the cup of en-
couragement in the Master's name.
A Wider Field
What our Societies have expended in Negro edu-
cation, however, does not represent the total con-
tributions of Northern Baptists for this object. Our
States are the happy hunting-grounds through
which have wandered Negro pastors and teachers,
and the amount of money which has been collected
from individuals, Sunday schools, young people's
societies, and churches, represents not only generos-
ity, but constitutes a vast sum.
The Negroes themselves during these sixty years
have appreciated our efforts on their behalf, and
have paid into the school treasuries of our various
institutions hundreds of thousands of dollars for
board and tuition charges. This makes two points
clear: That their parents and friends are coming
to financial strength, which makes possible the edu-
cation of the younger generation, and also that a
multitude of young men and women are eager to
possess ample preparation for the work of life.
Our Task
We need to remember that the task in which we
are engaged may be a very long one, for it may take
as many decades to solve this problem as it took to
make it. How long, therefore, shall we patiently
pour our missionary treasures of money and of life
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 29
into this stream ? We answer, Till our work is done
and others come to supplement our labors.
It is a joy to know that the best sentiment in the
South today, where the tide is rising fast, demands
not only an education for the masses of the colored
people, but that higher educational institutions shall
be developed to supplement the denominational
work, both in order to provide teachers for the rural
schools and to train the exceptional man and woman.
Important changes are imminent in the South.
The growing efforts on behalf of the Negroes in
the organizing of Young Men's Christian Associa-
tions led by the Southern white students ; the estab-
lishing of fellowships in Southern universities for
the study of the race problem; the Christian work
which Southern church boards are doing with in-
creasing liberality these are significant tendencies
of Southern life today. Their work at first will sup-
plement our Christian endeavors and in the end will
probably lessen our commitments to this form of
Christian service, which will naturally be transferred
to the hearts and hands of white men and black who
live as neighbors.
The Breadth of the Problem
Who can travel in the South and not observe
the kindly feeling which prevails between the better
classes of both races? It is not in the ability of any
one reared in the North to instruct intelligently the
Southern Baptists as to what they ought to do.
Every word of exhortation given in the South
may well be repeated in the North, where prer
30 AMERICA TOMORROW
judice against the Negro we fear is not growing
less. Indeed, the Baptists of the Northern States
may well read the burning utterances of our South-
ern leaders and labor more zealously in our cities
for the evangelization of the Negro people, many of
whom absorb the vices and not the virtues of their
environment. As we read the calls to service ut-
tered to their brethren by these Southern neighbors,
and meditate on their words in praise of our Chris-
tian schools, let us not for an instant imagine that
the Baptists who have always dwelt closest to the
great population of Negro people have not gen-
erously assisted the Negro Baptists in their Christian
enterprises. Their gifts doubtless have long since
passed the mark of two million dollars. Indeed,
almost every Negro church has appealed, and not in
vain, to their Southern friends to help build its
edifice.
The Negro problem is a national problem and will
never be solved by the North alone nor by the South
alone, but by the North and the South together,
working on a larger plane than has ever yet been
devised and in constructive ways that will utilize
the financial ability, the intellectual leadership, and
the moral power of the Negro race.
2. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NEGRO
By W. S. TURNER
My parents were poor but honest and industrious.
The school advantages of my boyhood days were
poor beyond the power of many today to imagine.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 31
I attended school in a one-room schoolhouse, and
was taught by poorly paid teachers. The school year
was always less than three months. Most of the
pupils would forget in nine months nearly all they
had learned in three. I tried not to lose everything.
I succeeded somehow in carrying from year to
year the little I learned during the one term of
school held annually. From time to time I added to
my little store of knowledge as opportunity afforded.
By the time I was seventeen years of age I knew
about as much as my teacher. Accordingly, I left
the country school and went to work at a saw-mill
where I received wages to the amount of sixty
cents per day. Half of my income I was obliged to
give to my father. I was under twenty-one years
of age and was supposed to "belong" to him; it
was my duty to compensate him for " raising " me.
Such, indeed, was the community conception of
childhood.
Of course, I did not mind giving the money to
father, for he was doing the best he knew for me
and probably did do all that he could under the cir-
cumstances. As a matter of fact it was my duty
to help him and mother along with the children
younger than myself. I saved thirty dollars and
entered A. and M. College, Greensboro, N. C., where
I was able to remain three months.
I taught school the next year.
Again I entered school, this time at Slater School,
Winston-Salem, N. C., where I received what was
then called a normal diploma.
While at Slater I professed faith in Christ. Upon
32 AMERICA TOMORROW
returning home, those of my family and the com-
munity generally did not believe that I had had any
religious experience whatever. They did not hesi-
tate to tell me so. My faith was too simple, they
thought. Salvation is not so free, they argued.
This cold reception given to me, a new convert, may
be understood when it is recalled that my parents
and the members of the community generally, at
that time, held the faith of the Primitive Baptists
an extreme type of predestinarianism.
In 1905 I entered Shaw University and was a
student in that institution until 1910, when I was
graduated from the college and theological depart-
ments. I earned the money to get through Shaw by
working during the summer months first in a steel-
mill and later in an ice factory in Braddock, Pa.
The work was hard. I worked twelve hours a day
and seven days each week.
After graduation from Shaw I did Y. M. C. A.
work for one year.
My thirst for knowledge was by no means satis-
fied. In 1911, I made my way to the University of
Chicago. In 1913, Chicago conferred upon me the
degree of Master of Arts. The same year I was
asked to return to Shaw as a member of the faculty.
I came and have been at Shaw ever since.
Life has been for me for the most part a severe
struggle, but I have enjoyed it immensely and enjoy
it still.
Hath hope been smitten in its early dawn?
Have clouds o'ercast thy purpose, truth, or plan?
Have faith, and struggle on.
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 33
3. THE FIRST AMERICANS AND THE NEWER
AMERICA
By B. D. WEEKS
(The record of the work of the Home Mission forces in the
training of America's youth, would be incomplete without
the story of Bacone College, our notable Indian School.)
At an Indian Association my heart was stirred
to see an Indian father and son in the fellowship of
the ministry, and in the name of our Baptist denomi-
nation I thanked the father for giving his son to the
ministry of the church of our common love. Where-
upon he rose and in his courtesy of manner said:
" Mr. Weeks, this boy is the son of my first love,
long gone from me; and I sent him to Bacone. I
worked to get the money. I paid his way. I asked
no help. It was my joy. When I am dead I will
leave him to the Baptist denomination of my love."
And the Association sobbed and then broke into
song and I with it. Can you think that a race which
can produce such poetry of fatherhood will not
come in due season to bless the world?
The Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes are a
Baptist heritage there being more Baptists among
them than members of any other denomination. Bap-
tist mission work among them began long before
they removed from their old homes to the Indian
territory. Today the names of Isaac McCoy, Hum-
phrey Posey, H. F. Buckner, J. S. Murrow, and A. C.
Bacone, are household words among the Five Civi-
lized Tribes. Then too, there were strong native
34 AMERICA TOMORROW
preachers among them, such as Charles Journeycake,
John Mclntosh, Wesley Smith, Chief John Jumper,
Black Beaver, Chief Keokuk, and others who gave
themselves and all they possessed for the cause of
Christ and Christian education during pioneer days
in the Territory, when Bacone Indian University
was first founded.
Race Leaders Win Success
There are many leading Indians of the Five Civ-
ilized Tribes able to cope with their white brethren
in the point of leadership. Rev. Henry M. Harjo, a
Bacone man, full-blood Creek, has acquired con-
siderable wealth through oil production, gives him-
self unselfishly to the evangelization of the Seminole
Indians in Florida, and has given liberally of his
means recently to the Murrow Indian Orphanage at
Bacone. There is no way of knowing how much
time and money Mr. Harjo has invested in the Semi-
nole work.
Rev. James McCombs, another native preacher
among the Creeks, a farmer preacher, working in-
dustriously with his hands to support his family,
and preaching every Sunday, a man of unblemished
character, moderator of the Creek Association, is
also a Bacone graduate.
Mr. F. C. Alec, an active layman among the Creeks,
clerk of the Creek Association, generous with his
means, a good business man, is also a Bacone grad-
uate. Rev. John Smith, a Bacone man, Sunday
school leader, and missionary to the Florida Sem-
inoles, whose purse is freely open to every good
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 35
cause, and a man of unblemished character, has
given his time and influence freely for a new and
greater Bacone. Rev. P. R. Ewing, one of the most
active and influential ministers among the Creeks,
is a Bacone man. Mrs. Ewing, a graduate of Bacone,
and a daughter of Rev. William McCombs, is a
regularly appointed missionary of the Creek Asso-
ciation to the Wichita Indians. Mr. and Mrs. Ewing
have given their time and influence without reserva-
tion to the building of the new Bacone, Mr. Ewing
having served as my faithful interpreter for the
past eighteen months most efficiently. Rev. William
McCombs, pioneer minister among the Creeks, has
given his influence for forty years for the upbuild-
ing of Bacone, and rejoices that he lives to see the
fruit of his labors.
For a New and Greater Bacone
Bacone College is situated at Muskogee, the capital
of the Five Civilized Tribes, and almost in the heart
of the Creek nation. It ministers to an Indian pop-
ulation of more than 100,000 within a radius of 100
miles. Then there are the Blanket tribes numbering
19,000 in the western part of the State. This year the
following tribes are represented among the student
body: Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Sem-
inole, Euchee, Shawnee, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho,
Wichita, Apache, Pottawatomie, Cheyenne, Otoe,
Pawnee, Osage, Mono, Hopi, Crow. These students
come from Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arizona, Montana,
and California. If only we had the means Bacone
could easily become a great national school for In-
36 AMERICA TOMORROW
dians, with every tribe in the nation represented.
It must be. The Indians depend upon their mission-
aries and native preachers for advice and leader-
ship, but only a small fraction of these have had
any adequate preparation, and the great majority
of them have had no theological training whatever.
Bacone College with its pitifully inadequate equip-
ment, is nevertheless the best opportunity open to
the ambitious Indian youth. We have crowded two
hundred students into dormitories that should not
hold much more than half that number. Our
teachers are shamefully overworked. We should
have facilities at once for not less than five hundred
students. Almost half that number have been denied
admission this year for lack of room. It is true
we have now a building program which includes a
new administration building and two dormitories,
the money being provided by individual Indians, the
Home Mission Society, and the General Education
Board, but these buildings will not relieve the
present demand. There must be at least two more
dormitories, a dining-room and kitchen. Perhaps
the greatest need of all is a well-equipped gymna-
sium. Many Indian youth are tubercularly inclined,
and we have been praying that some one might be
led to provide this need.
The Baptists should develop Bacone College to
provide for at least five hundred students, though we
could easily have twice that number if we had the
equipment. It will be several decades before the
Indian children as a whole will be ready to enter
white schools. Hundreds of them from fifteen to
BAPTIST MISSION SCHOOLS IN SOUTH 37
eighteen years of age have never been to school, and
must enter the primary, where in white schools they
would be laughed at, whereas in Indian schools they
are understood, and meet with the interest and
sympathy so much needed in their development. We
should have an up-to-date normal department; a
greatly enlarged theological department, so that the
Indian churches may have intelligent Christian
leadership, and where missionaries can be trained
for the thousands of neglected Indians in Central
and South America; the grammar grades must by
all means be maintained; a first-class musical de-
partment, to develop the musical genius of the race ;
an art department, for the Indians are natural
artists; a practical business course, to meet the de-
mands for clerks, stenographers, etc., and so keep
our young people out of undesirable business col-
leges in the cities; a strong industrial department,
including practical farming, trades for the young
men, and instruction in cooking, sewing, dressmak-
ing, millinery, nursing, and home-making for the
young women.
CCKRENT DATA ON HOME MISSION SCHOOLS PUEFAUED BY GBOKGB RICK HOVBY,
SECRETARY OF DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME
MISSION SOCIETY
SCHOOLS AND LOCATIONS
TEACHERS
PUPILS
White
Colored
Indians
Nationals
'cS
-4-*
O
H-
For
Ministry
ss
s.2
a?"
MO
4>
I
_*
^4
3
13
a
0>
fc
i;
es
Z
o
"3
S
o>
fo
" fii
3?
*
a* S
P.O
ECU
O*J
m Q.
fla?
HQ
Negro Schools supported chiefly by the
A. B. H. M. 8.
Virginia Union University, Richmond, Va.
Shaw University Raleigh, N C
3
2
7
1
12
11
1
13
10
5
o->
10
4
5
2
9
7
1
11
6
5
19
33
30
24
21
25
19
20
5
3
"is
30
"24
4
12
172
86
23
175
2
49
9
Benedict College Columbia, S C
Morehouse College, Atlanta, Ga
Jackson College .Tackson, Miss
Bishop College Marshall, Tex
G
2
9
1
Storer College, Harpers Ferry, W. Va. . .
Total
20
1
41
9
69
41
171
49
92
516
Nearo Sclwols helped by the
A. B. H. M. S.
1 Hartshorn Memorial College, Richmond,
Va
5
10
7
9
9
"s
5
10
19
13
10
11
4
8
15
15
29
20
23
20
40
16
Florida Normal and Industrial Institute,
St Augustine, Fla
21
57
12
47
8
Selma University, Selma, Ala
1
22
20
21
Roger Williams University, Nashville,
Tenn
Simmons University, Louisville, Ky. . . .
Arkansas Baptist College, Little Rock,
Ark
>
2
1 Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga
36
Coleman Academv, Gibsland, La
2
Total
3
47
48
80
178
145
....
66
Indian School Supported by the
A. B. H. M. S.
Bacone College Bacoue, Okla
3
12
1
16
Forciyii-ftpcukinf/ Schools
Nationals
- Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary,
Saltillo Mexico
o
1
4
6
5
"6
7
6
18
1
13
....
43
2 Mexican Boys' High School, Saltillo,
Mexico
Colegios Internacionales, Cristo, Cuba. . .
3 Evangelical Seminary, Rio Pied r as.
Porto Rico
3
1
1
^
4
5
2
62
9
International Baptist Seminary, East
Orange N .T ....
5
>
7
Spanish-American Seminary, Los Angeles,
Calif
13
Total
10
3(5
12
112
22
6
50
IS
107
9
Grand Total
140
127
415
212
199
591
1 Supported largely by the W. A. B. H. M. S., which Society helps in support
of the other Negro Schools except Virginia Union, Morehouse, and Bishop.
-Supported jointly with Soul horn Baptist Convention.
''Supported in cooperation with six denominations; statistics refer to Bap-
tists only.
CUKKEXT DATA ON HOME MISSION SCHOOLS PKEPAHEI> BY GEOKGE RICE HOVEY,
OF DEPARTMENT OP EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME
MISSION SOCIETY
PUPILS
"5 a)
cd*ej
Second-
03
a>
MC3
C5 u
ary
to
G
o
bo
8
w o>
a; Q,
bteB
t->
ss
73
es
a
"S
02
n
be
fl
S*
a
o
2
tt-t be
0>
p2
o>
a
j^
fa
P_!
".a
*3 t*
02
5-g :
73
a
"*
73
a
a
1
73
73
-M
s
"9
I'l
||
|S
a
S| j f
0>
OH
S
fa
H
H
O
H
w
M
X n
Bd.
HH
s
o
a
3 g
68
170
390
390
240
82
24
g
343
36
43
14
82
132
197
212
409
245
35
56
35
358
36
23
79
148
309
253
423
676
223
35
141
28
35
572
34
309
510
510
255
52
30
10
471
34
7
54
101
76
108
167
275
139
19
f40
3
231
34
76
8.1
71
42
162
182
344
177
40
117
2
309
36
5
57
100
70
108
178
148
16
168
36
152
82
827
552
427
1690
1092
2782
1427
263
424
66
55
2452
....
14
9
132
109
280
280
253
36
21
24
45
123| 87
105
192
181
f50
6
166
32
1
3
60
146
389
218
410
628
239
57
236
4
12
536
34
12
7
31
48
IS
74
72
146
105
12
56
5
125
35
22
64
96
116
52
202
250
452
284
60
f50
{20
....
411
35
6
108
113
124
198
174
372
135
31
43
f20
352
23
56
240
H54
731
731
42S
196
59
4
715
34
6
*
22
59
257
151
195
346
12S
8
117
....
288
84
160
341
899
1426
930
2217
3147
1495
168
748
103
27
2846
....
40
24
16S
128
104
232
19R
19
168
35
43
43
43
43
36
010
212
51
36
is
.
88
41
130
203
110
313
150
5
f40
274
36
o
2
o
35
6
4
66
32
10
3
13
11
10
11
33
13
88
41
342
532
117
649
257
60
.... 45|
287
249J 242
1296
1516
2363
3280
3530
6810
3377
491
1172
1691 146
5753
i
1
f This sign denotes " more or less,"
m
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL
THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION
Ill
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL
By MRS. FREDERIC S. OSGOOD
Given a great objective the missionaries of the
Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society
go out to work among women and children. The
objective is expressed by the motto of the Society,
" Christ in Every Home." A good, broad motto
this, not confined by oceans nor constricted by
national boundaries. No wonder that every effort
toward accomplishing this ideal, for the motto is
an ideal, has a by-product in foreign missionary
activity.
The methods of reaching this ideal must be as
various as the types of homes visited. Women mis-
sionaries are carrying the Christ into igloos of
Alaska, dugouts of the prairie, shacks in the moun-
tains, teepees on the plains, adobe huts in the South-
west, factory houses in industrial centers, tenements
in the great cities, and cabins in the Southland.
Wherever they go they confine their direct ministry
to women and children, yet as the family life is en-
nobled when a place in the home is given to Christ,
the man of the house is helped.
Of all the means employed by the Woman's So-
ciety none is surer in its method nor sounder in its
principle than the Fireside School. A presentation
of its method and principle is essential in a study
of Baptist work for boys and girls in America, since
it aims to help mothers to rear properly their chil-
43
44 AMERICA TOMORROW
dren, and it works directly with children through
a system of clubs called Sunshine Bands.
There is something a little misleading at first in
the term " Fireside School," not in the " Fireside "
part of it but as to the " School." Traveling through
the country district of the South even after sixty
years of progress, one is depressed by the thousands
of one-room cabins, sometimes windowless, often
with but one small window besides the yawning
opening of the doorway. The only indication of
comfort in this primitive dwelling is the clay chim-
ney which promises an open fireplace around which
the family gathers in rainy weather and in winter,
its warmth and glow the luxury of their lives. The
original organization established by Miss Moore is
not a school in the usual sense, though its activities
have developed into educational agencies. Miss Moore
expresses in just what sense it is a school when in her
sweet and naive story of her life she says, " If I
cannot have both heart and head educated, then I
shall choose the educated heart." The Fireside
School primarily is for the education of the heart,
and its means is the family altar.
Do you remember the child story of the poor
neglected woman of the tenement who was given
a blooming geranium, arid how she placed the plant
on the window-sill only to find that the window-
pane was so dirty that the sun could not shine
through? She washed the window, then the win-
dow-sill. She hunted up old white cloth, washed it
and made a curtain. So the story goes, one im-
provement led to another until her poor room and
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 45
herself were as clean and neat as her circumstances
made possible. It all came about as you remember,
in her gradual effort to make the environment fit
the one thing of beauty that had been given her.
In just this way, in thousands of humble homes that
precious thing, the family altar of the Fireside
School, has been established, and in efforts to har-
monize to it a sordid environment, the life of the
whole family has been lifted. The Fireside School ,
idea was not an emergency effort born of sudden
necessity. It was the result of over twenty years
of faithful toil among the scattered cabins of coun-
try people and among the struggling Negro churches.
Miss Moore found that the place where these people
most needed help was in their homes, and the thing
that would help them most there was the study
of God's Word. With her canny knowledge of their
nature and their limitations she planned an organi-
zation. Its one rule was that membership required
the daily reading of the Scripture lessons published
in Hope, and in connection with the reading the
family was urged to pray together and to sing a
hymn when the day's lesson was read.
Since the account of the Fireside School is il-
luminated at every point by the history of Joanna
P. Moore, it seems expedient at this point to tell the
story of her life. The sources of information are
the autobiography quoted above, "In Christ's
Stead," a treasured friendship during her later
years, and the testimony of those she served as
"Mamma Sunshine," who loved and obeyed her
when she lived and revere her memory.
46 AMERICA TOMORROW
The Power of the Word
A nine-year-old girl living on a lonely farm in
Clarion County, Pennsylvania, was just a little un-
happy because the young minister "who spent the
winter with her family never noticed her much.
But sunshine came when on leaving he gave her a
little book, the first book that was her very own.
It proved to be a collection of talks to children, each
one based on an evangelistic text and followed by
a simple prayer. On the title-page were the puzzling
words, " To be read alone in your closet."
The little farmhouse had but one closet, used for
a store-room and packed to the door. It had no
window. There obediently she went, pushed boxes
and bags about until she could perch her little self
inside, and with the door open just wide enough to
let a ray of light fall on the book, she read the ser-
mons and kneeled to pray. In the dusk of that
crowded closet the Christ who never left her came
into the heart of Joanna Moore. No wonder that
always she was sure that when the right portions
of God's Word were put into the hands of the un-
converted, they would, if faithfully read, prove the
means of salvation.
Giving and Receiving
In 1844 no schoolhouse was near enough the
Clarion County farmhouse for Joanna to attend.
No time was there for Joanna to study at home.
Every task that a willing, capable, healthy twelve-
year-old girl could do, was her lot, and she loved to
Joanna P. Moore
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 47
serve. The sister, a year or so older, who would
have shared her tasks, was blind, and the mother
in pity and love never required any service from
her. Sometimes when she could get a moment,
Joanna would read to her sister. One day when the
mother reproachfully called Joanna back from the
enchanted place into which the two girls had wan-
dered through the door of a book, the blind one cried
passionately, " Oh, Joanna, teach me to do the work,
and while I work you can read to me."
The waiting task was in the garden among the
currant bushes. Can you picture the scene? The
two sisters are close together, the groping hands of
one finding the clusters of ripe red fruit and drop-
ping them into the pail, the other with her head bent
over her book reading aloud. The mother coming
in search of currants, watched unobserved for a
moment and then went back to the house. The pail
was not full at noontime, and leaves and twigs were
mixed with the currants, but as she remembered
the happy face of her afflicted darling, the mother
made no comment.
Soon Joanna had put to work her partner in the
pursuit of literature. The blind girl learned to wash
dishes, to make beds, to shell peas, and to pick over
beans. She undressed the baby and put him to
sleep. But her greatest achievement was knitting.
Hour after hour she sat and knit stockings and mit-
tens for an always large family. In time she be-
came so proficient that not only her whole family
but also her friends and acquaintances were proud of
her skill. While she did housework or tended babies
48 AMERICA TOMORROW
or knit, Joanna (aloud) read and reread every
printed scrap that came to them.
From this cooperation the little girl had empha-
sized before her again and again as she watched
her sister, the happiness that comes from work to
do and ability to do it. Also she found from her
own increasing mental power the chance there is
to acquire an education through reading.
This later was tested out for her when in her four-
teenth year she had the opportunity to go to board-
ing-school for the winter. There, though her heart
was made heavy by the treatment she received from
the fashionable pupils who looked down upon her
because of her quaint clothes and because she worked
for her board and tuition, they could never look
down upon her scholarship, for she led her classes.
The following summer Joanna taught her first
school, and from then on she alternated teaching
and studying until she was called to definite service.
She says of these years, " If ever a poor girl had
a hard time getting an education it was Joanna
Moore."
Her Call
In the fifties foreign missionaries were rare. But
to a place where Joanna was teaching came Sewall
M. Osgood, a returned missionary from Burma, and
she heard him speak. Instantly the young girl re-
sponded to the summons in her heart to go. After
the service she went to the missionary and offered
her life to the cause of carrying the gospel across
the seas. He was not encouraging. She was very
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 49
young and very poorly equipped. He persuaded
her to go back to school.
For four years she kept at alternated study and
teaching, each season of teaching growing longer as
family responsibilty increased. Then came the re-
alization that her duty to an aging invalid mother
precluded foreign service. Again Doctor Osgood
came to the town where she was at work. Again
she went to him, the call and home responsibility
confusing her as to her duty. " Have you heard,"
the foreign missionary asked her, " the call of the
Southland?"
Gradually the purport of the call changed. In the
following words she described this change:
Foreign missions with all their sweet attractions receded
and kept receding till they were in the background, and
there in the front stood the black woman with her baby,
both half naked, stretching out empty hands to me. Finally I
began to ask myself, " What can I, a poor child, do?
Will they listen to me? I suppose God will show me how to
love them. Every heart needs love. But they need some-
body older and wiser than I. Let them go and do the work."
I asked myself and asked God a thousand questions and
only got one answer, " Go and see and God will go with you."
I did go. I did see. God did go with me, and cleared the
way. I surely made a good bargain when I invested in the
Negro race.
Her First Missionary Journey
Her own chronicle reads, "November, 1863, I
landed on the desolate shore of Island No. 10." On
this island was a camp where a multitude of desti-
tute Negro families, " contrabands of war," were
guarded by a regiment of white soldiers. They were
50 AMERICA TOMORROW
idle, lawless, and demoralized. The first duty given
to the new missionary, jokingly, by the captain of
the regiment, was to settle a quarrel between two
Negro women. The vituperation and violence of the
women and their families frightened the little slip
of a girl. But her earnestness and tact won the
day, and her investigation opened her eyes to the
fearful need.
The contrabands were huddled several families in
one small cabin with but one cooking utensil among
them. They were almost without clothes. Her work
was to distribute clothing sent from friends in the
North. As she went about among them, she found
her pity turn to love and her love develop into a
yearning to bring spiritual comfort to this people
impoverished even more in soul than in body.
She could think of but one way. She gathered
them together at evening, and after they had sung
their plantation hymns and prayed the impassioned
prayers of their race, she taught them texts of
Scripture. Just as in her own experience in her
closet, she saw the power of the Word of God as
out of disorder and hopelessness came children, then
women and men converted from their sins and
changed in their lives.
When in the spring she saw her colony loaded in
boats to go to another camp, she went with them.
At the new camp she persuaded the soldiers to make
her an arbor in which she gathered four different
schools during the day. She nailed her blackboard
to a tree and taught these groups to read, using for
her lesson Bible texts printed on the board.
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 51
From this camp, Helena, Arkansas, she went to
Little Rock, later to New Orleans, out from there
into smaller places, sometimes working under an
individual Northern church, sometimes in Quaker
orphanages. Sometimes one wonders just how she
was supported, until in March, 1877, she received
her commission from the Woman's American Bap-
tist Home Mission Society. " That meant " she says,
" help, prayer, courage, perseverance, and supplies."
She kept her connection with this Society until her
death in April, 1916.
The Evolution of the Fireside School and Sunshine
Bands
For over twenty years Miss Moore went from
place to place visiting Negro churches and homes,
spending most of her time in Louisiana. She found
among the many hindrances to her work the condi-
tion of the church houses. Often they were the
merest shacks without floors or sufficient windows.
But worst of all, there was seldom any means of
heating them. The custom was to build a fire
outside, the people going out to get warm and com-
ing back to freeze. They were in isolated places,
and the church-goers had to come miles over ap-
parently bottomless roads. These conditions drove
her more and more to concentrate her work upon
the homes.
But if the condition of the churches seemed al-
most impossible, the condition of the neglected
homes was worse. Miss Moore learned to carry a
sewing-bag, patches, soap, and clean rags with her
AMERICA TOMORROW
when she set out on a day's work. In a dirty, dis-
ordered one-room cabin she would find a group of
tiny, dirty, hungry, squabbling children left alone
from sunrise to sunset while the adult members of
the family were in the fields at work. Quietly she
would win the confidence of the children and with
their unskilful help clean them up, mend their
clothes if it could be done, teaching them a Bible
verse as they worked. If it was late afternoon she
would make corn bread and have supper ready when
the tired workers came home. She would sit down
at the table with them and share their meals ; after
supper, by the light from the fireplace, she would
open her Bible, read to the family, always sharing
the reading with any member who could read.
When the reading was over and prayer offered
she would urge them to daily reading, and give them
a Bible if they had none. But her heart was heavy
as she went, away because though promises had
been made willingly and sincerely, the obstacles of
ignorance and weariness would soon obliterate the
influence of her visit.
To help the women in these families that she vis-
ited she planned a Mothers' Training School, a place
where needy mothers could spend a month and have
demonstrated to them how civilized people live and
bring up children under Christian influences. With
Miss Moore to plan was to execute, and soon she had
a small school in operation. This was successful
enough to warrant a larger one. The second school
was such a success that at Baton Rouge a really
ambitious enterprise was begun and was in existence
3
a;
C/3
a
o
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 53
over two years, when the prejudice of a certain
group of white people frightened the pupils away
permanently, and the school had to be given up.
Nobody will ever know the tragedy this was to
Miss Moore, for she was not one to complain or nurse
a sorrow, yet Providence plainly ruled here, for if
her Mothers' Training School had been a success, a
few local institutions, no doubt most valuable, would
have taken the place of the wide-spread functioning
of the Fireside School.
When the Mothers' Training School plan was
abandoned, Miss Moore went back to her house to
house fireside gatherings and worked out her plan
to make every such gathering a permanent institu-
tion.
Sunshine Bands grew out of the hopelessness of
cheerless, fireless churches, as a plan to gather chil-
dren. Such churches were a menace to health and
to enthusiasm. Inadequate Sunday wardrobes kept
many plantation little ones away from Sunday
school. Miss Moore would gather a small company
of children in one warm house, picking them up as
she went, from cabin doors and roadside. Because
every child loves to belong to something, she or-
ganized clubs. In these she taught or encouraged
her Fireside School Mothers to teach Scripture pas-
sages, tell Bible stories, and prayerfully present the
way of salvation, always along with this giving
homely advice and pioneer temperance instruction.
Things that evolve slowly adapt themselves to
conditions and needs. The Fireside School and Sun-
shine Band are such evolutions. Not until more
54 AMERICA TOMORROW
than twenty years after she went to Island No. 10
did Miss Moore launch the Fireside School enter-
prise, and not until seven years later was the first
Sunshine Band organized. But they were the per-
fected results of methods used day after day success-
fully.
In Persecution Often
The method of Miss Moore's work left her open
to misunderstanding. She went, the only white
woman, to associations of Negro churches, and she
visited in Negro homes. At a time when the problem
of what is known as " the black belt " was most
acute, the resentment against her and the suspicion
of her intentions were extreme. As she tells of her
lonely experiences, one is struck by the lack of bitter-
ness in either her behavior or her story of events.
At one time she went to a church in the country
where an Association meeting was being held.
Around the church were refreshments and merchan-
dise booths presided over by white men at which
the country people were encouraged to spend their
money. When Miss Moore entered the church and
quietly took her place on one of the benches ready
to whisper counsel to the leaders or seek an oppor-
tunity for conference with the women, the white
merchants became very much excited. At length
they sent a spokesman who called her to the door
and told her that she would not be allowed to stay
over night with a Negro family nor would any white
people in the town take her in.
Back to her bench she went, keeping her own coun-
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 55
sel and praying with the faith that brings things to
pass. It was after midnight before a place was
found for her to sleep in the home of the country
doctor, whose wife refused to speak to her. But
such was her winning charm that when she returned
to the meeting next day, the doctor's wife went in
with her and sat through the service.
In Death They Were Not Divided
It is hard to find the exact annals of the last years.
When the magazine Hope was issued, headquarters
for the Fireside School were established in Plaque-
mine, La. These headquarters were moved several
times until in 1895 they came to Nashville where
they now flourish. The. first humble building was
furnished with some of the equipment that had been
in the Mothers' Training School, though most of this
had been sent to needy institutions. It was never
Miss Moore's way to store anything that was needed
by other people.
In 1906, Miss Moore finally relinquished the super-
intendency of the Fireside School, and in 1911 the
editorship of Hope, although she continued to write
the Bible lessons as long as she lived. Frail and
worn, she came to Chicago to live. Everywhere she
was in demand as a speaker, and everywhere she
would go while her strength held out. Her last win-
ter she spent in the South and in the springtime,
April, 1916, died in the home of the Negro president
of Selma University in Alabama.
She was buried at her request in the Negro ceme-
tery in Nashville, a place where her friends are free
56 AMERICA TOMORROW
to go and come. At the first conference of the Fire-
side School in Nashville in 1920, the last afternoon
was given over to a pilgrimage to the grave of
" Mamma Sunshine." It was rose time, and every one
of the hundred delegates and their many Nashville
friends had their hands full of fragrant blossoms.
There were tears and prayers and testimonies at the
short quiet services around the grave. Then as they
piled the little green mound high with roses they
sang softly and reverently the noble funeral spiri-
tual, " Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Comin' For To
Carry Me Home." Silently they dispersed, the love
and gratitude of their " educated " hearts a precious
monument to Joanna P. Moore.
To fully understand the power of the Fireside
School in the conservation of childhood one must
study the agencies through which it works, the mag-
azine Hope, Reading Courses and Clubs.
" Hope "
It is not enough to leave a Bible in an uneducated
home with directions to read it daily. There must
be some guide to the readings, a choice of passages,
and a few words of explanation and application.
Help is needed by the beginner on how to pray,
and what to pray for, if the family altar is to be
a strength in family life. The little magazine pub-
lished monthly in Nashville, devotes one-third of its
space to Bible lessons. These selections follow gen-
erally the International Lessons. The commentary
is simple and clear but intensely spiritual. The
Negro has a religious temperament and demands
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 57
high thought, but he needs with it good sound advice
as to its translation into daily living. These lessons
are prepared by Miss Ada F. Morgan, the Superin-
tendent of the Fireside School.
Miss Morgan's personality is adapted to her work.
She has the dignity of demeanor demanded by the
Negro idea of the fitness of things, and the under-
standing of them and love for them that has won
their loyalty. Under her administration the organi-
zation has made steady progress.
The editor of Hope is Miss Grace M. Eaton, a
typical New England lady. Steadily the circulation
of the magazine increases until it now is 31,500.
This circulation is by no means confined to the
South. Some of the largest Fireside clubs are in our
large Northern cities. In a December number is
found the following announcement for the next year :
During the coming year HOPE will continue to publish
" Subjects for Meetings," " The Prayer First," the " Bible
Quiz," the monthly suggestions for work for the Bands, and
the monthly missionary article.
Seasonable material, temperance information, in-
spirational poetry and a well-conducted children's
department added to these announced contributions
go to make up a publication that Baptists may be
proud to own. It goes where often it is the only
magazine taken and is read by every member of the
family. Add to this the guided reading of the Read-
ing Course, and one wonders if Negro Fireside School
families are not in the way of acquiring a better
culture than the ordinary white American family.
58 AMERICA TOMORROW
The publication is self-supporting, the only present
regular expense of the Fireside School to the
Woman's Society being the salaries of the workers.
A fine old Negro woman, in speaking in praise
of the magazine, said recently that when she was a
child she had not had the opportunity to learn to
read, but when a friend subscribed for Hope in her
name, even though she was an old woman she deter-
mined to learn to read it. She carried it with her
to the different places where she worked by the day
and sought help whenever she could find or make
an opportunity. " Now," she said, " I can read Hope
and my Bible too, praise the Lord. I do not know
just how I learned, but I did."
Reading Courses
When baby chicks are hatched, the mother hen
and her brood are placed in a coop where the little
ones can run in and out, but the hen is imprisoned.
As soon as the chickens are old enough or indepen-
dent enough to stray and not heed motherly admoni-
tions, the mother is released in order that she may
watch her family better and lead them in the right
way.
There is many a human mother who never gets
out of the coop. She is kept there often by the baby,
often by hard work and generally by both. But the
children travel farther and farther, and the mother
may cluck and cluck, but unless she can go with
them intellectually they will wander far away from
her protection. Here lies the beauty of the Reading
Course of the Fireside School. It makes it possible
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 59
for a mother to see beyond the smoke-blackened
walls of her kitchen into the great world without,
through the medium of the printed page.
The appended list speaks for itself :
FIRST-YEAR BOOKS
How John and I Brought Up the Child
or
For Mother, by J. P. Moore
In Christ's Stead (Miss Moore's Life)
According to Promise
SECOND- YEAR BOOKS
Up From Slavery (Booker T. Washington)
Kind and True, by J. P. Moore
or
Ann of Ava
How to Pray, by R. A. Torrey
Serving the Neighborhood
THIRD- YEAR BOOKS
The Secret of Guidance, by F. B. Meyer
Health Lessons
Love Stories of Great Missionaries
Famous Men of Modern Times
FOURTH-YEAR BOOKS
Light on Life's Duties, by F. B. Meyer
Women of Achievement (Sketches of six
prominent Negro women), by Benja-
min Brawley
Uganda's White Man of Work
Home and Family
60 AMERICA TOMORROW
Certificates are given for the first year's course
completed, and appropriate seals are added until
the four years' work is covered. There is another
course provided for children, but Reading Course
members say that all the books of both courses are
consumed by all the family, reading often aloud
around the hearth.
Clubs
Of the various group organizations under the
Fireside School only two will be considered here,
Bible Bands and Sunshine Bands, and the first of
these only to give the three pledges which show the
scope of the work attempted for children in their
homes.
PARENTS' PLEDGE
1. I promise, that by the help of God, I will
pray with and for my children, and daily
teach them God's Word and expect their
early conversion.
2. I will be a good pattern for my children
in my daily life, especially in temper,
conversation, and dress.
3. I will recognize the fact that God expects
me to care for and train my children for
him in soul and mind as well as in body.
SONS' AND DAUGHTERS' PLEDGE
1. I promise in God's strength lovingly to
obey my parents, and join with them in
prayer and study of the Bible and other
good books. If I have a better education
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 61
than my parents, I will take great plea-
sure in reading to them and teaching
them in a respectful manner; also in a
patient spirit to help the younger chil-
dren.
2. I will try to be a pattern in neatness, in-
dustry, and cheerfulness, and thus help
to make home the happiest spot on
earth; and to stay at home as much as
other duties will allow.
TEMPERANCE PLEDGE
I promise in God's strength not to buy,
drink, sell, or give intoxicating liquors ;
also to abstain from the use of tobacco in
every form, from gambling of all kinds,
and from impure words and actions.
Sunshine Bands, the organized Children's Club
of the Fireside School, is named in honor of
" Mamma Sunshine." Their watchword is " Shine,"
their colors yellow and white, and their motto Mat-
thew 5 : 16. A little yellow-covered pamphlet, " A
Guide for Sunshine Bands," contains the four ob-
jects of the Bands: (1) To give instructions in
Scriptures; (2) To give missionary information;
(3) To teach God's method of giving; (4) To train
in Christian service.
The editor of Hope they call " Sister Sunshine,"
and bands in good standing keep up a regular corre-
spondence with her.
It is impossible to get many statistics about Sun-
62 AMERICA TOMORROW
shine Bands. From the very first they have proved
effective in conversion of children and instruction
of young converts. The instruction in giving has
borne remarkable fruits. As a fundamental teach-
ing Miss Moore's observation is taught : " The Bible
has not instructed us how to raise money but to
GIVE." Stewardship texts are learned. Money-
making schemes are discountenanced, but methods
whereby individual children can earn money are en-
couraged. Self-denial is urged. How effective this
last means has become is a story in itself and worth
telling.
Sunshine and Have Faith in God
" We have been told that the prayer-meeting is
the thermometer of the church, but it seems to me
the more money we give, the real amount of self-
sacrifice we make is a better proof of our piety than
even our prayers." So said Miss Moore, whose faith
in prayer was the strength of her life. She saw in
all her work undignified, selfish, and wasteful ways
of getting the money needed to support Negro
churches. She saw also that the results were so
meager that there was never enough even for local
expenses. She determined to teach children a
different way.
In the fall of 1897 she sent out a special letter
to Sunshine Bands.
You give birthday presents to those you love, don't you?
Won't you give Christ a birthday present this year? Will
you ask your parents to give you the money that your own
Christmas present would cost, and let you give it as a
THE FIRESIDE SCHOOL 63
birthday gift to Christ on Christmas Day? Send it to me
with the story of what you gave up.
There were not many Sunshine Bands in those
days, but over $300, accompanied by touchingly
happy letters, came to Miss Moore, and was invested
for foreign missions.
The next year Rev. J. L. Buchanan, a missionary
from Middledrift, South Africa, visited Fireside
School headquarters and told the workers of the need
of schools among the native Africans. Miss Moore
for the Sunshine Bands of America decided to open
a Sunshine School in Africa supported by self-denial
money.
It happened that not only the children's money
came in to support the school. Parents were quick-
ened to give by seeing the unselfishness of their
children. The money came in so steadily that in
1906 a second school was opened and called " Have
Faith in God." These two schools are still flourish-
ing. So flourishing they are indeed that the need of
new buildings urges these shining young Christians
to greater efforts even in self-denial.
The Fireside School Headquarters has a program
of activities that practically makes it a Christian
center. It is accepted as one of the institutions of
Nashville. One of the leading white women of the
city teaches a large week-day Bible class of women.
There the Fireside School conferences are held. Its
doors are open to the meetings of the Negro women's
civic organization. Evening classes and clubs are
held in its hospitable rooms. Every summer a
Vacation Bible School crowds into every corner of
64 AMERICA TOMORROW
it. In this school every week a Sunshine Band meet-
ing is held, and each year as a result of the Vacation
Bible School another Sunshine Band is organized.
Given a Breakfast
From last summer's school this story comes, a fit
ending to an account of the Fireside School.
A little girl who had listened to the missionary
story of the morning and had seen the children
bringing up their offering went home with a heavy
heart. She had nothing to give and no way to earn
money. But next morning she was back with a five-
cent piece clasped in her hot, thin, little brown fist.
"It ain't too late to gib, am it?" she asked,
"Mammy's sick an she done g'me dis jitney for
m'brekfus."
" But aren't you hungry? " Miss Morgan inquired.
"Yeth'm, but I ain't done gib nuffin yet." And
the five cents went into the missionary bank.
Later Miss Morgan took the child out to a little
table on the back porch. For a moment she drew
back, though she never took her wistful eyes off the
unusual dainties spread before them.
" You all ain't reckoning to chawg m' nuffin, is
ya?" And not until she was sure that her self-
denial offering was safe could she be persuaded to
satisfy her hunger.
IV
CHRIST AT THE CENTER
IV
CHRIST AT THE CENTER
By CONSTANCE JACKSON
Every forty seconds an immigrant enters New
York. Every forty seconds! Think of it! Not
all of them stay there of course, but it is in their
problems that we are interested, whether they settle
down to tenement life in old Bagdad-by-the-Subway
or migrate still farther inland to mining or factory
towns. Can you see them all? Can you visualize
this steady stream of men, women, and little chil-
dren who have come to a new land wrapped in
dreams and clouded with hope? The outcome we
know all too well. Crowded into dark cheerless
tenements, they miss the sun and flowers of their
native lands. Landlord and storekeepers alike take
advantage of their ignorance and consequently
they are hounded on all sides.
But what about the children, for it is they whom
we are considering first? Did they too have dreams
of a fair and happy America? They do not find it,
poor things, in sweat-shop or factory where many
of them work the long day through. No sunshine,
no play, no childhood for them in this land of the
free and home of the brave. Not only in New York
is this so, but in the mines of Pennsylvania, the
cotton-mills of the South, and the stock-yards of
Chicago. The compulsory education law in large
cities sees that the children attend school, it is true,
but that does not prevent them from being exploited
67
68 AMERICA TOMORROW
out of school hours. Even if they are not forced
to work, they are usually needed at home to look
after the babies while mother and father or older
brothers and sisters toil at the factory in an effort
to meet the exorbitant charges for rent and food
in this free, Christian America. With their thin
little bodies under all too scanty garments and their
pinched, worn faces, already they look like little
old men and women.
Is this a cheerless picture? Is it unfair? Is it
untrue? Walk through the tenement district of any
of our big cities and see for yourself. Those who are
playing about the streets are not much better off
than those toil-trapped brothers. Hundreds of them,
dirty, bedraggled, picking up the worst words and
habits of our country. Foul language falls inno-
cently from young mouths which are frequently all
unaware of the meaning of these strange American
words. Lines of drab laundry, scarcely more clean
than when it entered the tub for a half-hearted
scrubbing, are suspended on pulley ropes stretched
from tenement to tenement, while strings of maca-
roni and spaghetti dry in the air. Delapidated
houses look, if anything, more delapidated in the
pitiless glare of the sunlight ; and there is a general
lack of soap and scrubbing-brushes. Yet these are
the surroundings in which future Americans are
growing up. Here are tomorrow's voters. What is
being done to make them healthy, happy Christian
American citizens?
In their midst stands a wide-portaled, well-propor-
tioned dwelling of red brick with white trimmings,
Tenement in New York City
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 69
truly " a house by the side of the road ! " Nobody
rings the bell. Just turn the knob and walk in. The
door is always open from early morning until late
at night, for this is a Christian Center a commu-
nity house which belongs not to one but to all. All
the dirt and despair are without, for inside is clean-
liness, order, and inspiration. Walk in and take
time to look around you carefully. You will be im-
pressed with the changes wrought.
In the hallway, directly opposite the stairway
mounting to the next floor, is a generous-sized brick
fireplace, piled hospitably high with logs. Perhaps
a picture of the Madonna, or a da Vinci head of
Christ hangs over the mantel. A group of Camp-
fire Girls or Boy Scouts have decorated the wall with
deserted birds' nests and an empty beehive, found
on some hike and brought back as great treasures.
Walk back to the door on your left, behind the stairs,
and you will find a spotless dispensary, painted
white and equipped with all the paraphernalia of a
modern clinic. A doctor has just come in, and as
he slips into his white coat we are told that he is
the best eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist of the
city. A white-capped nurse is laying out the instru-
ments for a tonsilectomy, while several small chil-
dren and their mothers are waiting in the next
room. The children look a little pale and under-
weight. In a few weeks the loss of the diseased
tonsils will make them sturdy and full of high
spirits. We are told that tomorrow a long proces-
sion of mothers and babies will be waiting for the
baby clinic to open. The babies are weighed, health
70 AMERICA TOMORROW
charts plotted, diet lists given out, and medical
treatment administered where necessary.
We glance across the hall where a mothers' sewing
club is in progress. Sewing-machines and tongues
run busily in friendly competition as Mrs. Navarro
learns how to refit John's coat to small Mary's
shoulders, and Mrs. Santos cuts nightgowns for
her little girls, who have always slept in old dresses
heretofore.
We are attracted by the sound of a kindergarten
song chanted in shrill childish voices up-stairs. Curi-
osity bids us follow our inclination and walk up
the broad, low steps, so evidently framed for the
convenience of small feet. But there is no sign of
any person in charge, and we hesitate. A small
boy bolts suddenly into view and seeing our con-
fusion stops to explain politely in rather broken
English that we are perfectly welcome to go up.
Here is the " open door," in truth.
The head worker, a pleasant, bright young woman,
steps to her door as we reach the head of the stairs
and shakes hands cordially with us. We are invited
into the pleasant living-room where the workers
meet of an evening or entertain friends. An over-
flow Woman's Bible Class is held here on Sunday,
so great is the demand on the other rooms. More
than one foreign woman who has been brought here
for a cup of tea and a bit of advice as to her prob-
lems, has gone out with a sparkle in her eye and a
determination in her heart to keep her own rooms
cleaner, " lika de teach ! " Wisps of curtains and a
bit of green plant often find their way into tenement
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 71
houses as a result of the silent message of this home-
like room.
Here we are told a little about the work and its
history. This house is only one of twenty-five which
Northern Baptists are maintaining in different parts
of the country. They have been built as a direct
answer to the problem of the foreigner in the
crowded slum, and they are ministering also to the
Negro who has migrated North, and the Mexican
who has crossed the border into the United States.
Generally the buildings are erected through the
cooperation of The American Baptist Home Mission
Society and the Woman's American Baptist Home
Mission Society with State Convention Board or
City Mission Society. Workers are supplied by the
two Home Mission Societies and usually include at
least a head worker, boys' worker, kindergartner,
and nurse.
But we must not let our thirst for information
interfere with our sight-seeing tour. " Come to
the nursery and see our babies before they are all
awake from their naps," says the head worker. We
find ourselves in a large cool room where twenty
little white cribs hold as many sleeping occupants.
A soft breeze stirs the curtains at the windows and
blows pink roses into pale cheeks. Now they are
beginning to wake and a kindly-faced nurse car-
ries them off, one by one, for a bath and shampoo,
since this is head-washing day. Most of the children
come from homes where naps are unheard of, and
at first they hotly resent such an infringement on
their personal liberty. In a short time, however,
72 AMERICA TOMORROW
they become so accustomed to the daily naps that
heads nod as regularly as clock-work after lunch,
and the babies fall asleep at the table unless they
are put to bed.
Sunshine streams through six large windows into
the nursery adjoining the dormitory. A border
of ducks and geese circles the walls, window-boxes
hold toys well within the exploring reach of little
hands, there are small red chairs and tables, bright
pictures on the tinted walls, and gay chintzes at
the windows. At the small charge of ten cents a
day the children of widows and deserted mothers
who find it necessary to work all day are cared for
here with loving devotion. They begin to arrive
about seven in the morning when the mothers leave
them on the way to button-factory or steel-mill.
Breakfast is given where necessary; a dinner of
soup, milk, vegetables, and custard at noon ; and a
supper of cocoa, apple-sauce, and bread and butter
before they are called for at night. Week-ends are
the bane of the nursery, however, for, in spite of
precautions and advice to the young mothers, much
of the improvement due to regular hours, sleep, and
nourishing food is undone. The babies are taken
on long subway or trolley-car visits to relatives and
kept up long past sensible bed-hours ; naps are like-
wise neglected, and candy is apt to take the place
of the regulated diet of the nursery. It is a long
process of education to remove years of ignorance
and lack of training. They mean well, but they do
not know that what the baby wants most is not
always best for it.
5
H
**
3
M*
If
2
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 73
A few older brothers and sisters come at noon for
the hot lunch and return after school to play or read
until mother calls for them on her way home from
work. They are welcome to use the shower-baths at
certain hours, as are the mothers, and we note that
appointments are assigned on a card attached to the
bathroom door. It is not unusual to find children
sewed into their clothes for the winter with bodies
quite untouched by soap and water for long weeks.
It sometimes takes quite a little persuasion on the
part of the nurse to remove the dirty garments and
subject the little body, covered with sores and
grime, to the healing touch of warm water. Fright-
ened tears are soon replaced by smiles, however, and
it is not long before the children and mothers alike
look forward happily to the routine bath.
"Please mam, ma says could my little cousin
soak a lon-n-n-g time cause she's just outen the
steerage? " was the greeting of one small girl, lead-
ing a still smaller one by the hand. This is fairly
typical of the freedom and confidence with which
the people of the community utilize the facilities
of the Christian Center. Recently the head worker
discovered when the foreign families in the vicinity
wanted to describe where they live they always say,
" So many blocks from the Christian Center." Surely
this is strikingly illustrative of the place which the
community house holds in the hearts of the people.
But now we are hurried down-stairs to visit the
teen-age girls' club while it is in full swing. Fifty
strong, they are satisfying their feminine construc-
tive instincts by sewing on pretty chintz table-
74 AMERICA TOMORROW
covers, pink and white striped aprons, and dainty
colored handkerchiefs. When they are finished the
little girls are privileged to pay a few cents for the
cost of the material and take the article home. Con-
versation is carried on happily in a low tone, but
there is no confusion or disorder. Later the girls
will hear a Bible story, recite some Scripture verses,
and finish up the afternoon with a rousing good
game of volley-ball in the gymnasium.
Suppose we investigate on our own account while
the girls are still busy with their work. A schedule
in the hall tells us that a woman's cooking class is
in progress at this moment in the basement. Here
we find them eight young brides who are learning
how to make bran muffins. How intent they look,
and how interested in the fate of the plump, tender
muffins they have just placed in the oven. Some of
them will be left as an offering for the children's
supper in the nursery, but there will be enough left
over for a tea-party of their own before they leave.
The teacher is showing them how to place the dishes
and silver on the round table in the window spread
with the snowiest of white table-cloths. How much
they are learning about American life and Amer-
ican ways ! At first it was hard to make them see
the value of cooking anything but the fried rice
cakes and greasy stew to which they were accus-
tomed. Once they had tried carrot salad and fresh
vegetable soup, bran muffins and custard, however,
they were enthusiastic. One woman said: "My
man, he lika much. He say maka again." We go
out quietly just as the group about the table are
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 75
bowing their heads reverently while teacher says
" grace."
A pretty bright-eyed child of eleven or there-
abouts has been trailing us about for some time in
the self-appointed position of guide. Seeing our
enthusiasm over the cooking class she tells us proudly
of the little girls' class which meets each Saturday
afternoon. This is a nutrition class, every member
of which has been found to be mal-nourished by
the doctor in charge of the clinic. Weight charts
are plotted for them, and the children are taught
recipes for simple, nourishing food. Concetta
laughed when she told us about last week's menu.
" We learned how to make cocoa," she said, " and the
teacher gave us some funny things to eat we'd never
seen before. She called it ' shredded wheat/ and
she had to show us how to fix it with milk and sugar.
But it was awful good and now my mother buys it
for breakfast and I make the cocoa. It's better for
us, teacher says, than the fried potatoes and fish
we used to have." Concetta lives in three tiny base-
ment rooms with her parents and nine brothers and
sisters. The table had never known a white cloth
until Concetta went to the cooking class. Table-
knives and teaspoons were unheard of. Concetta
sleeps on the floor, for " How can four of us stay all
night on one cot bed? I always fall off ! "
Think what the training in cleanliness and order
at the Christian Center means in homes like these.
The children, at first so shy and awkward that they
cannot even manage their spoons, gradually gain
self-confidence and take delight in eating "Amer-
76 AMERICA TOMORROW
ican fashion." These little suppers afford a wonder-
ful opportunity for intimate talks with the children
about the real things of life, about their troubles
and problems which they cannot understand or mas-
ter alone, about the heavenly Father and the help
he can give them. The dishes are usually washed to
the tune of " Sunshine In My Soul " or some other
favorite hymn. And how the red lines indicating
weight have traveled steadily upward on the health
charts! Some are now up to the black line at the
top which means " normal," and the children are
interested in driving it into the area above, for they
know that a few pounds of extra weight is excellent
health insurance, like money in the bank.
As we walk along the hall we peep into one door
where an English lesson is in session. A young
Hungarian woman has hurried through her morn-
ing work at home, given her children their lunch,
and come flying across the street for her weekly
lesson, tying a clean apron over her dress. She and
the missionary teacher are bending over the same
book intently, so absorbed that they do not even
notice us as we stand in the doorway. We do not
mean it to happen, but somehow our eyes fill with
tears, and we find ourselves making a little song of
the words " Thy people shall be my people."
The kindergarten meets in the morning in a large
sunny room with curtains the color of blue birds.
Here the older children from the Day Nursery are
well supplemented by a rollicking group from out-
side. Such a gay time as they have with their motion
songs, marches and games ! And what lovely stories
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 77
teacher tells ! Angelina still asks for the one about
the baby Jesus in the manger though Christmas is
many months past. Many a home is gladdened and
helped as the little ones repeat for father and mother
"the story that teacher told us today." Health
lessons in the kindergarten are brought home effec-
tively by means of jingles and songs. Who would
not develop an acute distaste for coffee if he sang
this song every day?
Little drinks of coffee,
Little sips of tea,
Make our children nervous
And pale as pale can be!
No wonder they walk so proudly erect with this
verse sticking in the backs of their heads :
There was a crooked man,
Who walked a crooked mile,
But I, when I go walking,
Don't walk in crooked style.
I keep my chin and stomach in,
And hold my chest up higher,
And step along so straight and strong,
But never, never tire.
Try brushing your teeth to this verse and see if
it doesn't lighten the task:
Sing a song of tooth-paste
At morning and at night,
Twenty healthy little teeth
Strong and shining white.
78 AMERICA TOMORROW
Every day I brush them,
To keep them nice and clean.
Aren't they a set of pearls
Fit for any queen?
But the dusk is falling and the gathering shadows
warn us of impending night. This time between
daylight and dark is truly the Children's Hour at
the Christian Center, for as we drop down on a
wicker settee in the hall we hear a chorus of little
voices floating down the stairs in a last good-night
song. They are allowed to make their own choice
and tonight the favorite Christmas hymn has won
the day :
Away in a manger
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Lay down His sweet head.
It is the voice of a little Jewish girl which rings
out above all the rest in the psean of praise to Christ
the Saviour of the world. Now they come trooping
down the stairs, Antonia and Pedro and Maria, but-
toned snugly into their overcoats, each clutched
firmly by the hand of a smiling mother. One widow
who earned only thirteen dollars a week had paid
four of it to a woman to care for her two little girls
until she discovered the Christian Center. " I was
about ready to give up," she told the nurse. " Then
I found you, and now my children pray for you
every night."
And then there is Joey, a tiny waif of five who had
forgotten how to smile in the long hours when he
cared for a whining baby sister with mother and
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 79
father both at work in the factory. The visiting
nurse from the Center found them one day, and Joey
lost his " hate on " the baby when he found that
warm baths and plenty of milk made her a rosy
happy little girl instead of the wailing troublesome
mite he had vainly tried to keep quiet. Joey is
learning to play again and no longer looks like a
little old man.
" What you do to my Mamie? " asked one mother
curiously. " She no more say bad words, no more
' sass ' me back. She always wash her hand before
she eat now, and want her pa say ' grace ' like you do
here. I like my Mamie come by your house."
But perhaps the most beautiful tribute came from
one little girl whose prayers at night always end
with these words : " Dear God, make me like Jesus
and the 'missionary lady"
And so the curtain falls until tomorrow on " the
house by the side of the road " for the nursery babies.
-"But there are several hours of strenuous activity
ahead before the hospitable doors are bolted for the
night. There is an English class where the foreign-
born man learns more than the necessary rudiments
of a new language. Unconsciously he absorbs in
the process those principles of life which make for
Christian American citizenship.
Then there is a Scouts' drill scheduled, while a
group of young working girls will make the gym
echo as enthusiasm over the basket-ball game waxes
intense. The Italian girl who teaches them is a
product of the Christian Center herself. Today
she is studying physical culture at the best teacher's
80 AMERICA TOMORROW
training-school in the city, but she returns to her
foster home twice a week to pay her debt of grati-
tude.
All the pianos are in vigorous use as hearts
starved for music find peace and harmony in practis-
ing some favorite melody. The strains of a violin
steal through a closed door behind which Frank is
having his music lesson. Frank used to go with the
" gang " and was fast developing radical tendencies.
Now he has found a new world in music, and all his
energies are bent on organizing an orchestra among
the boys. " In my heart I knew there was good in
the world somewhere," he says. " Now I have found
it." The pool-room no longer has any fascination
for Frank.
Other activities have their place on different eve-
nings. Perhaps it is a Bible class seventy-five are
enrolled to study the life of Christ, we are told. Or
perhaps it is a community sing when old and young
crowd the auditorium to make the rafters ring with
the melody of hymn and chorus. Then there is the
famous Family Night on Saturdays. Every one
from father to four-year-old Michael gathers for an
early supper served by the cooking class and fol-
lowed by an educational or religious film. The eve-
ning ends with prayer and a hymn, and all go home
refreshed, newly fortified to meet the trying prob-
lems of their life in America.
Sunday is the crown of the week. Of course all
the activities of the Center, since they minister to
needy people are, in a sense, religious. But these
buildings are not social settlements their chief pur-
CHRIST AT THE CENTER 81
pose is to lead men and women to that Friend of
friends, Jesus Christ. Hence the joy which greets
the Sabbath when workers may forget all else and
concentrate on the dynamic force which lies in
Christianity. There are church services night arid
morning, Sunday school for children "and adults,
a vesper service, and a men's Bible class. Personali-
ties are developed in an amazing way and characters
transformed by bringing people into fellowship with
Christ.
But the day has really come to an end now, and
the big family are leaving reluctantly, with many
a backward look. Over and over the question comes :
" Can't I stay a little longer? I don't want to go! "
A young man carrying a pile of books away from
the library says apologetically, " We would stay all
night, all time, if we could." Stragglers have been
known to hide behind the hat-rack or under the
table in the hope of staying all night. But the last
loiterer has been ejected, and the great doors swing
shut to allow tired but happy workers a well-
deserved night's rest. Morning comes soon enough,
and the missionary will be greeted by Katie or Annie
or Sophie already in line for work. " Got a job this
morning, maybe yes? My man's sick, and the kids
ain't got nothing to eat."
A Christian Center means many things, you see,
but more and more religious leaders are coming to
agree that it is the key to the heart of the commu-
nity. One of the roughest men of the neighborhood
was found in the hall of the building one day in-
specting the pictures of " Christ in the Temple " and
82 AMERICA TOMORROW
the " Triumphal Entry." He studied them intently
for a time and suddenly burst forth : " I want to say
something. When I saw this house being built I
thought, ' What kind of a devil house is this going
to be, and what good is a Baptist church around
here? ' I want to tell you I've changed my mind. I
like those pictures, and I want that my children
come by your house."
And little Lucy said shyly in the kindergarten one
day, " My mamma wants some one to come and tell
her more about the Jesus we sing of in our songs."
Does it pay? That is the harsh question which a
materialistic age demands of every venture. In
this case we can answer affirmatively in very definite
accents, " Yes." It pays economically and physi-
cally, socially and morally. It pays to take a mother,
and father, a little child by the hand and lead them
to the Light Eternal. For then they will have truly
found the celestial palaces and the golden opportuni-
ties with which their dreams beckoned them across
the seas. "And I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away. And I heard a great voice out of
heaven saying, * Behold the tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be their God.' "
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS
By COE HAYNE
A ministry to the boys and girls who live far from
the centers of civilization has been a part of the
home-mission enterprise from the beginning. When
that far-seeing pioneer and Baptist missionary, John
Mason Peck, bade farewell to his Connecticut home
to begin the long journey by wagon and keel-boat
westward, it was his concern for the boys and girls
in " the regions beyond " that urged him onward.
And today it is one of the chief concerns of the
church to discover the most effective means of bring-
ing the children of the neglected areas within
Christian influences and under the watch-care of
organized Christian agencies. That the boys and
girls reared in remote, inaccessible places have con-
tributed in a large way to the educational, economic,
and religious life of the nation is a statement which
requires no argument in its defense. It is one of
the truisms familiar to schoolboys and girls.
The inhabitants of the lonely places are not a
people to be pitied or patronized, for their very re-
moteness has its compensations. The wilderness has
a charm of its own. In referring to those who adore
it and would not willingly exchange it for life in
long-established and thickly populated communities,
William E. Smythe in " The Conquest of Arid Amer-
ica," says:
85
86 AMERICA TOMORROW
As I write, I hear of a young lady who has enjoyed the
advantages of Boston and New York, of San Francisco and
Los Angeles, but who resists the appeals of her parents to
come out of the desert wild where she went for a brief vaca-
tion, already lengthened to months, and where she has pre-
viously spent weeks which she enthusiastically describes as
" the only time I ever really lived." She writes :
"When I am in the city, my happiness depends on people
and society, but out here in the deserts and mountains the
country itself is satisfying. Perhaps you don't understand
what I mean, but I do."
I understand precisely what she means, and so do all men
and women who turn their faces toward *the clean, beauti-
ful, unpeopled wilderness with the thrill of a lover's heart.
The pioneer who entered the barren desert of
withered grass and sage-brush or mountain fastness
was equal to the gigantic task of subduing the wilder-
ness and developing its immeasurable natural re-
sources, but often would have lost in a battle against
religious destitution had it not been for timely help
from Christian agencies far from his community.
The waste of desert and mountain has not been " the
land that God forgot." Very early the church boards
of the different denominations became God's instru-
ments in the work of developing the spiritual re-
sources of the remote places. In the pageantry of
our national movement westward the home-mission
enterprise has had, and is still having, its prominent
part. The gospel has not always followed the pio-
neer ; it has gone with him, often preceding him.
Not infrequently it is declared that the frontier
has disappeared. In terms of free land and unre-
stricted grazing privileges this statement is true.
But in terms of gospel destitution the frontier will
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 87
exist as long as there are communities composed
of people who cannot hear the gospel preached or
attend Sunday school without traveling from
twenty-five to fifty miles, because no service is
held nearer. Regarding the religious destitution of
countless remote localities, Dr. L. C. Barnes, in 1922,
said :
It is a common mistake to suppose that the days of pioneer-
ing are done. On the contrary, the tide of pioneers is reach-
ing new heights. This is not only in the way of new and
more intense types of pioneering, but also in the number
of actual settlers on new land who are carving homes out
of the wilderness. According to official records when com-
pared by five-year periods more homestead entries, "final
entries " for actual settlement, were made in the last five
years than in any other five years since Abraham Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act of Congress. The next largest
number was in the preceding five years. In the last ten
years more new farms have been opened than in any previous
fifteen years. Our Far Western Conventions have today
problems as strenuous as those of the midland West a gen-
eration ago. In fact, our current problems are more stren-
uous because everything moves so rapidly under modern
conditions. What is a Sahara one year may be a Garden
of Eden the next. Swiftly it will be a paradise lost unless
we constantly establish the redemptive forces.
The home-mission enterprise cannot be disasso-
ciated from child life in the lonely places. It may
be said to exist for the boys and girls, even as the
family, the school, and all social institutions are built
to meet their needs enabling them to become builders
of the nation's life. The value of organized Christian
activity in the terms of character building may be
felt more acutely when there is a total lack of it.
88 AMERICA TOMORROW
Out of the experience of one of the empire builders
of the West comes an illustration of what the writer
has in mind.
In an isolated section of Idaho some three-score
years ago George Ferris, a prosperous ranchman and
tradesman, awoke to the painful realization that
while his business had prospered and he was in
peaceful possession of many acres of rich irrigated
land, he saw no ray of hope as he looked into the
future of the four children who brightened his
home. There were social, educational, and religious
advantages which his valley did not possess. After
conquering a part of the wilderness and winning
a material success, he resolved to quit his home.
Accordingly he advertised his property for sale.
For one year his land was advertised for sale at a
ridiculously low price. In the meantime a mission-
ary pastor entered the valley and began prospecting
for treasures far more precious than gold. Before
six weeks had expired he had visited all the widely
scattered homes. He preached in the schoolhouses
and before he left organized a church and dedicated
a church building. The community became a part
of his widely extended frontier parish. George
Ferris became a prominent worker in that church;
his children attended the Sunday school. When a
would-be purchaser of his ranch arrived one day,
he refused to sell an acre of land. With the coming
of the missionary there had come hope and a pro-
gram and a transformed community.
Home-mission agencies, both State and national,
have served the child life of the nation when they
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 89
have extended aid to weak, struggling churches at
critical periods or made possible the establishment
of churches when special opportunities were pre-
sented in new and growing communities.
A new town on the frontier scarcely may be
opened before a home missionary has visited the
ground to select a site and lay the plans for aggres-
sive church and Sunday-school work. This mission-
ary may be a State secretary, a pastor-at-large, a
worker in charge of a chapel car, a colporter-mis-
sionary, or a Bible worker. Religious services may
be held by him in the first frame building erected.
The Spirit and Genius of Home Missions
. Two incidents in the life of Dr. D. D. Proper, the
veteran home missionary lately summoned to greater
service, reflect the very spirit of home missions.
When the Great Northern Railway Company
started to build its transcontinental line to the Pa-
cific Coast, the objective point for striking tide-water
was Everett, Washington, and a new town site was
surveyed in 1891-93. It was a piece of cut-off timber-
land, covered with stumps and logs, with here and
there a dim trail, for roads were not yet provided.
While the place was being laid out for a town, Doctor
Proper traveled over it several times, to select the
best possible location of lots for a Baptist *church.
One of the surveyors was a Baptist young man,
the son of Dr. Edwin Brown. After a time the
selection was made, and the lots were reserved by
the land company for the church which the mission-
ary hoped to organize.
90 AMERICA TOMORROW
In 1894, Doctor Proper organized the church with
five members and a proxy who was the husband of a
sick wife and not able to come and yet who desired
to be one of the charter members. After a short
time a pastor was secured to preach for this and
the Snohomish church, about ten miles east of
Everett. It was not long until the lots were cleared
of stumps and a plain frame meeting-house was
erected by the help received from the Home Mission
Society. The people also responded liberally accord-
ing to their means.
From nothing, the town has grown to more than
fifty thousand people. The church has grown from
six to nearly seven hundred members. The old
meeting-house served its day and generation well,-
and has now given place to a fine new structure
worth over . forty thousand dollars. The church
gives annually thousands of dollars for missions and
is an aggressive force in every constructive com-
munity movement.
At another time Doctor Proper visited a new town
called Sumas, on the line between Washington and
British Columbia. Because of adverses and removals
the church had become nearly extinct. But it is
related by Doctor Proper how one woman stood by
the Sunday school faithfully. " Her loyal efforts
were born of a heroic consecration to her Lord and
a desperate determination to provide religious in-
struction for the boys and girls in her home as well
as those of her neighbors." At this point the vet-
eran missionary hit upon the central aim of home
missions. Today the seed is planted in the hearts
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 91
of boys and girls in a growing community which to-
morrow becomes the rich harvest for the nation's
strength and the glory of God. This is the divine
law in the building of the kingdom.
Doctor Proper looked around and found an old
store building in a very bad condition which he se-
cured with the help of the Home Mission Society.
Repairs were made and plain board benches pro-
vided for seating the people. This served as a
meeting-place for the Sunday school and church
services and a rallying-place for the people. Space
does not permit a record of the struggles and sacri-
fices of this little band of Baptists on the farthest
frontier. In time a pastor was settled and the
church won through, the old structure giving way
to a good house of worship.
In Behalf of All Neglected Fields
The interdenominational comity plan whereby the
neglected fields may be blessed by the gospel message
without the overlapping of denominational effort
is meeting with universal acceptance wherever it
has been tried systematically. Dr. L. C. Barnes, of
The American Baptist Home Mission Society, was
the pioneer in this movement and. with others suc-
ceeded in having it first put in effect in Montana.
How it has been received and adapted to the needs
in that State is intimated in Doctor Barnes* report
for 1923:
In spite of the prolonged and terrible industrial experi-
ences of Montana our work in that State forges ahead. Ex-
perience in the careful coordination of the work of all the
92 AMERICA TOMORROW
Protestant denominations there, through the Montana Home
Mission Council, proves that this is the way to achieve two
supremely desirable ends at the same time. One is the ad-
vancement of the kingdom of God without the waste and
scandal of denominational friction. The other is the ad-
vancement of our distinctive Baptist work, testimony, and
influence much more effectively than it could be done other-
wise. Nearly four-years' demonstration has been made of
the value of this new principle, which is in sharp contrast
on one hand with all attempts at organic church union or
fusion, and on the other hand with all haphazard sectarian
plunging. It is simply intelligent, patient, fraternal plan-
ning the spirit of Christ in systematic action. Secretary
Cress of the Montana Baptist Convention is recognized by
all as the central human factor in the demonstration. Other
States now are explicitly asking that " The Montana Plan "
be inaugurated in their fields. This plan, with its distinctive
ideal, was worked out and printed before the Interchurch
World Movement was thought of by any one, and has had
the vitality to survive the severe backwash of that decidedly
different undertaking. This plan of jEWr^-community Ser-
vice is going today much more strongly than ever before. Its
aim is not to shut anybody out of any place, but to get some-
body for Christ into every place. It is not ecclesiastical but
missionary.
" The evils so freely predicted of our efforts have
not appeared," reports Mr. Cress, in the Missionary
Review of the World.
We are pledged to absolute fairness in dealing with the
smallest group in the State. The right of the least denomina-
tion to expansion and unhindered self-determination is un-
challenged. No one is estopped in programs of aggressive
service. The Council has never made a decision involving a
withdrawal of any denomination from any field. The State
is large, and the needs greater than all combined can meet.
New work is launched with the knowledge and approval of
all the cooperating bodies.
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 93
We do not feel that we have solved all our problems, but
that a new and hitherto untried principle of "working to-
gether " has been discovered by Doctor Barnes, and Montana
is giving it an unprejudiced try-out. It gives us harmony
without negative action or compromise of principle. It has
shown the way for unity of action while developing new
intensities of denominational loyalty. It achieves results,
not by mandatory methods enforced by authority, but by
purely spiritual forces. Its cohesive energy lies in the sim-
plicity of its ideals, its spiritual quality, and its approved
soundness from social and business view-points. It is built
on the basis of a larger service and a fuller recognition of
the higher unity of believers than that conceived of in plans
involving organic union. It is purely a missionary program
without legal elements and is genuinely fraternal. 1
Community Service for Boys and Girls in Remote Dis-
tricts
The frontier missionary pastor, keenly alive to
his opportunities, fills a large place in the life of any
community he touches. His preaching engagements
form only a part of his ministry. He works hand
in hand with all local, constructive agencies, whether
religious, educational, or social. His acquaintance
may include the best teachers available for the local
schools; the boys and girls find him a sympathetic
confidant, and through contacts with him are en-
couraged to seek the largest possible preparation
for useful service for the community and the nation.
Such a pastor does not hesitate to utilize the equip-
ment of the church, no matter how incomplete it
may be, for the betterment of community life.
1 A reprint of " Denominational Cooperation in Montana," by G. Clif-
ford Cress, may be obtained by addressing 1 Home Missions Council, 156
Fifth Avenue, New York City.
94
AMERICA TOMORROW
For the sake of the boys and girls in the open
country as well as in urban communities, the ideals
of the Department of Architecture of The American
Baptist Home Mission Society have been determined.
Our churches should be intelligently planned, hon-
estly built, and beautiful, not only because they
stand as a symbol of Christian faith and love, but
Child Life in the Lonely Areas
because they occupy so large a place in the child
life of the nation.
Edmund de S. Brunner, author of " The New
Country Church Building," whose duties as a pastor
have enabled him to make intensive studies of rural
life problems, reflects a growing opinion that the
day has passed when there is need for apology when-
ever the church reaches out into the community
life to concern itself with some of the manifestations
of the abundant life. He asserts that
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 95
the church is the proper place for everything that should
legitimately enter into the lives of the people . . . Social and
community activities are far from detracting from the
sanctity of the edifice; rather, the place gives sanctity to
the other activities . . . How much more free and joyous
is worship when the worshiping parent, teacher, or friend
realizes that in that veiy building, that very week, whole-
some recreation and inspiring instruction have brought the
boys and girls of the community a step farther from life
failure, a step nearer to the ideal of Christian manhood and
womanhood. How fitting that the Corn Club should meet
to learn about the good of their souls in the same room that
has also held their discussions of good soil and good seed,
and whose walls are hung with pictures of fine stalks or
ears. There is no need for apology when a rural community
house is attached to a place of worship and the Bible school
compelled to use the rooms and equipment of such a build-
ing as best it can for religious education. The two concep-
tions are not contradictory, and a little care will safeguard
both.
In this connection may be mentioned the Daily
Vacation Bible Schools which have made possible
character-building activities for the children of iso-
lated communities as well as. of densely populated
tenement districts of great cities. The services of
the volunteer Daily Vacation Bible School workers
who assist the pastors of churches. and the trained
young women workers of the Woman's American
Baptist Home Mission Society are of inestimable,
kingdom-building value.
There are inspiring stories that can be told by the
directors of summer work in behalf of the boys and
girls in rural, industrial, and urban communities.
It was a revolutional suggestion that came from Miss
Meme Brockway of the Publication Society that
96 AMERICA TOMORROW
State Boards, concerned as they have been for years
with the pioneer problems of a denomination's
existence, should provide for a specialist who shall
devote full time to the boys and girls who constitute
more than one-half of the Sunday-school enrolment.
Among Indian Boys and Girls
The work which the missionaries of the two Home
Mission Societies have done for Indian boys and
girls, spiritually, morally, and physically, thereby
making a contribution to the advancement of a
Christian social order in America, would make a
long story in itself. In other sections of this volume
are accounts of the work at Bacone College and of
the work in behalf of Indian orphans. In addition to
the educational advantages offered Indian boys and
girls at Bacone, may be mentioned the many Sunday
schools and classes in English conducted by our mis-
sionaries on Indian fields. There are public schools
in existence today on Indian reservations which be-
gan as mission schools, the government taking them
over. There are at least two mission day-schools now
maintained by the Home Mission Societies. A school
for Indians is held in the building which Mission-
ary J. Winfield Scott has erected on land next to
the Indian colony near Gardnerville, Nev. Mrs.
Scott is teaching 35 pupils, only five of whom
have been in school before. Indians in this vicinity
had not been allowed in the regular public schools.
Some pupils in Mrs. Scott's classes are in their teen
age, having entered the school as beginners.
Miss Beatrice Sliter conducts a mission school on
Future Snake Chief
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 97
the Crow Indian reservation. At a recent father
and son banquet which was held in connection with
the school, there was reflected the spirit of the newer
and better day for Indians. A reverent stillness
pervaded the room while Good Horse returned
thanks. Bull Over the Hill gave a toast on " Boys
of Yesterday." He told how the boys in his day
spent the time hunting, camping, and riding. All
they thought of was a big time, he said, and urged
the boys to learn the ways of Jesus. Feliz Bear
Cloud talked of the " Boys of Today." There was a
splendid feeling of friendship and good fellowship
displayed on this occasion, also at the banquet held
for the women and girls.
From the beginning the Indians have been loyal to
the mission schools. Regarding the first school
opened for the Crow, Dr. Bruce Kinney has told
us that Little Owl offered to give free of rent three
rooms for two women missionaries until such time
as other suitable quarters could be provided.
Sharp Nose offered a good, unused house for a school
building on the same generous conditions. The Indians
further agreed to give us a tract of land. We bought it to
comply with government regulations and the Indians further
agreed to cut and haul the logs for the school and chapel
free and erect this building completely at their own expense.
Cooperative Contacts With Frontier Fields
The American Baptist Publication Society and
The American Baptist Home Mission Society, in so
far as their resources will allow, cooperate in the
maintenance of the special work of the colporter-
98 AMERICA TOMORROW
missionaries and the chapel car workers whose min-
istries include the saving of the adolescent life of the
neglected areas. 1
The colporter-missionaries visit families in dis-
tricts remote from settlements and churches to bring
the gospel message by spoken word and to distribute
Bibles and religious literature. Over and over again
the Bible is given without money where the people
are too poor to buy. It is gratifying to know that
the Publication Society as our Bible Society is en-
larging the Bible work which the denomination com-
mitted to its care years ago.
The colporter-missionaries hold personal religious
conversations for the purpose of strengthening
those who already are walking with Christ and of
winning others into personal fellowship with him.
It is also their purpose to bring scattered and newly
converted Baptists, wherever possible, into active
touch and fellowship with near-by existing Baptist
churches ; to report to the State superintendent any
situation which would seem to warrant the estab-
lishment of a Baptist church ; to institute, wherever
possible, the home study of the Sunday-school lesson
and to urge those who agree to enrol with the Home
Department, to purchase quarterlies and supplies.
Whenever possible, the colporter-missionary preaches
to groups of people who may be collected at any time
and at any place, where he may be passing. Often
in these meetings men and women living in isolated
districts hear the gospel for the first time.
1 For an extended description of the work of the chapel car workers
see " Old Trails and New," page 84.
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 99
Taking the Message to Bear River
Rev. J. M. P. Martin, of Colorado, has to his credit
a long term of service as a colporter-missionary. For
many years his territory comprised eleven counties
on the Western Slope of the Rockies. In former
days he traveled from one community to another 011
his vast field by horse and wagon, but during the
last months of his service he drove an automobile.
He has the veteran missionary's intimate knowledge
of conditions industrially and morally in his part
of the State and desires every Baptist who has the
larger vision to feel as he does concerning the great
country which he covered.
Several months ago Mr. Martin made an interest-
ing trip by automobile from his headquarters at
Grand Junction to points in Garfield, Rio Blanco,
Moffat, and Routt Counties.
From Grand Junction, Mesa County, to Rifle,
Garfield, was a ride of seventy miles. At Rifle Mr.
Martin was joined by Mr. John Hickman, a lay
preacher and a man who has a high standing in the
business life of his community. His conversion
years ago was one of the results of the colporter-
missionary's work when Rifle was little more than
a shipping-point for stockmen. It will be recalled
that Rifle was the outfitting-point for Theodore
Roosevelt when he made one of his famous hunting-
trips into the big game country.
Leading into Rifle from the north there is a fine
auto road which is almost completely shaled. It is
the main artery from a great ranching and stock
100 AMERICA TOMORROW
country to the railway line at Rifle. The best busi-
ness of the county centers at Rifle. At the time of
Mr. Martin's visit there was no Baptist church at
Rifle nor at any other point in the county.
Forty-four miles north of Rifle on this fine high-
way lies Meeker, the seat of Rio Blanco County and
the business center. In this county there was one
little Baptist church which worshiped in a school-
house. The pastor, Rev. W. C. Lindsey, a man of
good spirit, was leading a united people.
The next run was from Meeker to Craig, Moffatt
County, fifty-five miles by way of Mt. Streeter. At
Mt. Streeter, in the Axial Basin, Mr. Martin found
that a new coal-mine had just been opened. The
vein has a thickness of twenty-five feet drifting into
the cliff almost horizontally.
In all probability two railroads, one across the
Unitah Basin from Salt Lake City and the other a
continuation of the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad
from Steamboat Springs, eventually will tap the
Axial Basin. There is no Baptist church in Moffatt
County. Only as the colporter-missionary, with his
supply of Christian papers and books and his verbal
presentation of a Saviour's love, passes through, do
many of these remote communities receive the gospel
message at all.
Following the Bear River from Craig eastward
the missionary passed through Hayden, the center
of a farming and stock-raising section and then
through a little coal-mining town called Harris and
on to Steamboat Springs, the metropolis of Routt
County, a good business town with a promising
Rev. John M. P. Martin Points Out a Neglected Field
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 101
future. There is no Baptist church in Routt County,
but there are abundant opportunities for service.
Our veteran missionary has an unshaken belief
that the Western Slope is the coming " big country "
of the West and hopes to see a Baptist church
planted in every strategic point in the four big
counties comprising the northern half of his terri-
tory.
To make such a trip as the one just described is to
obtain a vision of religious. destitution that is well-
nigh appalling. Superintendent Palmer, in his
report for 1923, calls attention to the distressing fact
that by reason of shortage of funds, Colorado has
suffered the loss of two colporter-missionaries.
There are whole counties in Colorado that do not have
a single religious worker of any denomination, and we
would be able to place men in these districts, were funds
available, who could do a great and permanent work in king-
dom building. A number of recent revivals grew out of the
house-to-house visits of our colporter-missionaries, and
several of the meetings were held in dugouts, school-houses,
and private homes.
Along By-Paths in Nevada
There are neglected districts in nearly every State
in the Union where a colporter-missionary profitably
may be engaged in service to carry out God's great
purpose for boys and girls as well as men and
women.
Across the vast stretches of Nevada desert our
colporter-missionary, Rev. L. Rowe Williams, makes
his monthly rounds. He is bringing real hope and
spiritual refreshment to many families who would
102 AMERICA TOMORROW
not hear a minister's voice from one year's end to
another unless these visits were made possible by
the cooperation of the Publication and Home Mission
Societies. His territory is so large and the need is
so great that he calls himself a " bird-man, circling
'round and 'round trying to find out what to do
first." Here is only a partial list of places where
there is gospel destitution :
Deeth: 35 miles from Elko; population, 100; no
Sunday school ; no religious service.
Palisade: 30 miles from Elko; population, 150;
no religious work.
Eureka: 110 miles from Elko; population, 600;
no Sunday services.
Ruby Hill : 117 miles from Elko ; population, 50 ;
no religious service for ten years. (Mr. Williams
organized a Sunday school there last November with
a Baptist for a superintendent.)
Hamilton : 150 miles from Elko ; a mining-camp ;
no religious work.
Ruth: 190 miles from Elko; population, 300; no
religious work.
Cherry Creek: 180 miles from Elko; population,
200 ; no religious work.
From Carlin, 21 miles from Elko, where no
preaching services are held, Mr. Williams received
the following letter from a group of people grateful
because to them has come a " voice in the wilder-
ness " :
I feel we owe it to you to write to thank you for the
work you have done for us in Carlin. In the past, we have
had very little to encourage us in regard to the work the
CHILDREN IN THE LONELY AREAS 103
mere handful of Christians here were able to do. Sometimes
it seemed that our best efforts accomplished nothing at all,
and that our time was simply wasted.
Since you were here, last week, we do feel that the right
man has come. Never before have we been able to get so
many to Sunday school or church as there were there last
Sunday morning.
We sincerely hope that you may be able to continue coming
to Carlin, for the harvest is ready " but the laborers are
few." Like the man of Macedonia, we hope you may be
able to " Come over and help us."
The Prayer of a Blind Boy
The colporter-missionary's tasks call for men able
and willing to meet a variety of situations un-
dreamed of in the seminary classroom.
One afternoon a colporter-missionary came to a
ranch where a man lived who had the reputation
of being a hater of preachers. The oldest daughter
answered the visitor's knock and when she told him
her name the other recalled the death of a woman of
that name having occurred in the community a
short time before. He questioned the girl and
learned that the deceased had been the mother in
this home. After speaking a few words of comfort
the missionary expressed a wish to see the father.
He was told that he would find him at the barn. As
he was not there the missionary drove on and pres-
ently saw a man near the road mending fence. He
proved to be the father of the girl. Again words of
consolation were spoken, whereupon the missionary
was urged to return and put up at this man's place
for the night.
The farmer called up his son-in-law by telephone
104 AMERICA TOMORROW
and asked him to bring his family over for the eve-
ning. The two families visited for a time, and then
the visitor was requested to read the Bible. When
one passage had been finished a blind son asked for
another. The missionary complied with the request
and then urged all to surrender their lives to Jesus.
The blind boy responded willingly. That night after
the lights were out he came to the bedside of the
missionary and knelt to ask God to pardon his sins.
The next day the missionary departed with the
prayer that God would use the afflicted boy to bring
the other members of the family to Christ.
It is hard to tabulate the results of the work of a
colporter-missionary, but a single visit from this
man of God has often changed the outlook of a whole
family. He spends his time in the open. There are
few hardships he does not experience and few situa-
tions which he cannot compass. But he has rewards
and compensations such as are known only to those
who count it all joy to endure hardship as good
soldiers of Jesus Christ.
VI
ORPHANAGES
VI
ORPHANAGES
1. WHAT KODIAK MEANS TO THE CHILDREN OF
ALASKA
By MRS. J. S. COMSTOCK
The great territory of Alaska has been known to
white men less than two hundred years. The story
of Alaska begins with the day of Peter the Great of
Russia. There was great excitment throughout
Europe at that time, because a new map had just
been given to the world by a French geographer
showing a great undiscovered country between Asia
and America. France and Spain at once sent out
ships to find and claim the new country, and, Peter,
Czar of Russia, also sent out an expedition in charge
of Victor Bering who returned saying, " Though
there is such a country on the map there is none in
the sea." But the wise Peter persisted in sending
Bering back for another trial. Just as he was about
to give up for the second time, heavy fogs which had
prevailed for days, lifted, and Bering saw before
him the land he sought and took possession of it in
the name of Russia. For a long time little was
thought of Russia's new possession, but when, be-
cause of need of funds, Russia sold Alaska in 1876
to the United States there was great excitement, and
the whole world laughed at the idea of " paying
$7,000,000 for a country of icebergs, and polar
bears." When twenty years later gold was discov-
ered, Alaska did not seem worthless any longer.
107
108 AMERICA TOMORROW
Soon it was understood that gold and other rich
ores are not Alaska's only source of wealth. Her
thousands of miles of sea-coast with her salmon and
seal fisheries are also great sources of wealth which
make Alaska " a land of promise " economically to
the United States. Acquaintance with the natives
however proved them to be of a very low degree of
morality. Lying, stealing, gambling, and intem-
perance are found everywhere. The marriage union
is seldom held sacred, and polygamy is a common
custom. Because of these low standards of morality
there is a great deal of physical unfitness, suffering,
and misery, and diseases of various kinds are wide-
spread. Sanitation and hygiene in any form are
absolutely unknown, and little medical relief can be
obtained. Crippled children are numerous and
death stalks everywhere. Many children of four
and five years of age have never learned to walk.
They are only a few of a greater number who are
victims of disease and neglect, of hunger, dirt, and
cold.
To the Christians of the United States a knowl-
edge of these conditions in their new possession was
a great challenge, and religious bodies began to make
plans to educate and Christianize their neighbors
who were now also their fellow countrymen. That
part of Alaska known as Baptist territory comprises
some four islands about six hundred and twenty-two
miles from Sitka. On Wood Island, which is one of
the choicest, well-wooded islands of the group, where
farming is practical, a mission plant was built for
the purpose of saving Alaska through her boys and
ORPHANAGES 109
girls. The opposition of the Greek Catholic priests,
the immoral condition of the environment, and the
dreadful diseased condition of the children made this
a difficult missionary enterprise. The plant con-
sists of a church, two dormitories, one for girls, and
one for boys, and necessary farm buildings, and is
known as the Kodiak Baptist Orphanage.
Imagine that you see before you a young Alaskan
girl Tashekah by namje, paddling her canoe, hunting
salmon-berries, and carrying her baby brother on
her back. When night comes, see her return to her
home, and crawl into her corner for a good night's
rest. No comb tortures her tired head, no horrid
soap and water gets into her sleepy eyes, no strings
or buttons make work for her weary fingers, for
just as she is, dirt, blanket and all, she lies down, on
the same platform, with her father, mother, sisters,
cousins, aunts, grandfather, grandmother, and many
others.
One day when she was twelve years old, she
saw her father begin building a cell into which she
knew she must go, for she was now of marriageable
age, and in this cell, built under the platform, with-
out a ray of light, she must stay, without seeing or
speaking even to the one who thrust in her food
each day, until her parents found' her a suitable
husband.
Shut away as she was, her sense of hearing be-
came abnormally keen, and one day she heard her
grandfather had returned from a fishing trip with
the corpse of her grandmother dragged through the
water in the wake of his boat. Her heart burned
110 AMERICA TOMORROW
with indignation when she heard eight-year-old
Kunz explain to his little brother, " She was his
wife, he had a right to do as he pleased with her."
One day soon after she was brought out from her
cell to the glorious light to hear the name of her
future husband, they told her it was Shans-ga-gate,
her cruel grandfather. Dazed and sick at heart she
dared not utter a protest. Four days later Shans-ga-
gate was killed by a fall over the precipice, and then
the nude and bony form of the medicine man ap-
peared. After awful contortions and blood-curdling
yells, he revealed the name of the mortal who had
been the agent of evil spirits in the death of her
grandfather. With a gurgle the medicine man ut-
tered the name of " Tashekah."
Quickly she was thrown violently on a bed of
nettle thorns and tortured until her tongue was black
and swollen, and her body covered with smarting
bleeding wounds, until her brain whirled and all
became a blank. While she lay thus, the missionary
found this little twelve-year-old girl, procured her
release, took her home, and told her of a God who
loved even an Alaskan girl so much that he sent
his only Son to die, that he might make her good. 1
From such hopeless surroundings and dreary im-
moral homes, Alaskan children have been rescued
and in the shelter of the Orphanage have been
nursed to physical health, and taught to know Jesus
as " the way to strong, splendid, useful living."
{The catastrophe of 1912 when the eruption of Mt.
Katmai covered Wood Island with eighteen inches of
1 Condensed from story of Tashekan by G. E. Lathrop.
ORPHANAGES 111
ashes, supplied some elements to the soil that were
lacking before, so that good crops of cabbages and
cauliflower are grown now in addition to the peas,
potatoes, turnips, etc., grown before. These vege-
tables, as well as meat and fish, are canned for winter
use. Pans of milk on the clean airy shelves of the
milkroom have their share in producing the rosy
cheeks and strong healthy bodies of the family. One
of the herd that supplied this milk was a small cow
called Sonia. She caused the boys endless trouble
by getting through fences into the potato and oat
fields. Each time, after a long hard chase to get her
out, the boys consoled themselves by reminding one
another that Sonia had been selected as one of the
victims to fill the empty jars on the pantry shelves.
There are few days of sunshine in Alaska. The
summer lasts only through May, June, and part of
July. The days begin at three a. m. and continue
until ten p. m. The vegetation responds vigorously
to this lavish light, but even in summer, salt sea-air,
dampness from much rain, and cold winds from
snow-capped mountains make the days cool. In the
winter the days are very short, cold, and dark, with
heavy snowfalls and dense fogs. During all these
long hours of darkness the poor, feeble rays of
dangerous, gasoline lamps were the only way of light-
ing the Orphanage buildings. But when in 1919 a
radio station was built on Wood Island, two of its
men were permitted to show four of the Orphanage
boys how to wire and instal electric lights in the mis-
sion house. They learned enough about it to be able
to wire the girls' dormitory. The bright glow of these
112 AMERICA TOMORROW
lights is a welcome change from the old gasoline
lamps, and gives comfort and cheer through the long
hours of winter darkness.
Since 1908 the orphanage has been under the
supervision of Rev. George Learn, commissioned by
The American Baptist Home Mission Society. He
is ably assisted by Mrs. Learn and also by two effi-
cient matrons, Miss Mattson and Miss Hines, who
are under the appointment of the Woman's Society.
The family consists of nineteen boys and twenty-
four girls. Many of them have real musical ability
manifested in their skilful use of musical instru-.
ments and in their singing. . The violin, guitar, and
mandolin have been mastered by some of the chil-
dren without the aid of any instructor. That they
are also able intellectually is proved by the fact that
several of the prizes given for good work at the
local government school, which the orphanage chil-
dren attend, were won by mission boys and girls.
The children speak of themselves as " mission chil-
dren " and call the other inhabitants of the island
" natives," seeming to feel it a mark of distinction
and respect to be a member of the mission family.
The faithful matrons of the orphanage respond
to every call from the outside. Whether it be day
or night, none is turned away. Sometimes people
come for food for a sick child, or for something to
cover the coffin of a little one who has just died.
Whatever the request they receive the needed aid.
To give a home and Christian training to orphan
and destitute Alaskan children is the object of the
Orphanage. From the day the first child was re-
Orphanage Girls on a Hike
ORPHANAGES 113
ceived until this present hour this object has been
accomplished. Sometimes there are hours of sad-
ness and disappointment for the workers, but there
are many occasions for rejoicing, as these children
give evidence of development of Christian character.
On ,the last Sunday of September, 1921, the family
and the neighbors gathered at Unas Lake for a
baptismal service. The morning was clear and
bright and the scenery beautiful with surrounding
hills and snow-capped mountains in the distance.
Nine young people of the family followed Christ in
baptism. Again the next June five girls and five
boys received baptism. One of these boys is an
earnest boy-preacher, whom the boys* matron, Miss
Lucy Mattson, expects to send to the States, that he
may receive training necessary to do efficient work
among his own people. Several of the boys of the
Orphanage have become of age and are making their
own way in the world, equipped for it mentally and
spiritually by their training in the Orphanage. Does
it pay?
2. " MURROW," A HOME FOR ORPHANED INDIAN
CHILDREN
By MKS. J. S. COMSTOCK
Many Indian boys and girls have a very large
place in their hearts for " Father Murrow," as the
Rev. Joseph Samuel Murrow has been affectionately
known for many years. This name is universally
given him, not on account of his unusually venerable
114 AMERICA TOMORROW
appearance (having been born in 1835) but because
of his fatherly heart and the fact that he is the
founder of the orphanage for Indian children lov-
ingly known as the Murrow Orphans' Home.
There are many other Christian accomplishments
to the credit of this pioneer of religious work in
Oklahoma, among them the organization of more
than seventy-five Baptist churches and his assistance
in building and raising money for many meeting-
houses. He has himself baptized almost two thou-
sand Indians and helped to ordain some sixty Indian
preachers. But this missionary of The American
Baptist Home Mission Society, who has proved him-
self the ever-faithful fatherly friend of the Indians,
has endeared himself to orphaned Indian children
and given them reason for eternal gratitude by his
founding of the Murrow Orphans* Home.
The Orphanage stands on the college grounds of
the Indian University at Bacone, and a primary
school, kept for the accommodation of the orphans,
offers instruction for other pupils under the seventh
grade. The Indians themselves donated a large farm
for this purpose in the hope that some day the
orphanage would be self-supporting.
The orphanage cares for about sixty children with
ages ranging from two and a half years up. When
one goes, there are others waiting to fill his place.
That it is not long before all, except the very smallest
ones, become Christians, speaks well for the Chris-
tian instruction and influences of the home.
A beautiful story has recently come to us of an
Indian mother's magnificent gift to the Murrow
Dr. J. S. Murrow
ORPHANAGES 115
Orphanage. This young mother had lost three chil-
dren. After the death of her third child she adopted
a little Indian girl to whom she gave motherly care.
Then a son was born to her. The little boy lived,
and with a heart overflowing with gratitude to God
this mother sought for some expression of it. She
found this expression in a large gift of $100,000 as
an endowment fund for the Orphanage, for great
wealth had come to her through the discovery of oil
upon her land allotment. Her reason for selecting
Murrow as the recipient of her great gift reads like
a novel.
Long before wealth came to her she met at Bacone
a young student who at fourteen years of age had
been given a home in the Murrow Orphanage. In
their student days an attachment began between
these two which later developed into marriage while
both were poor. When she became rich, grateful
appreciation of the place that had sheltered and fur-
nished a home for the poor orphaned boy, who was
now her beloved husband, made her decide to put
Murrow upon such a financial standing that it could
shelter other lonely Indian children and develop in
them sturdy Christian character. It is obvious that
this romance also had its influence on another gift
of $50,000 which she designated for a boys' dormi-
tory at Bacone College.
Because of the generous gifts of two other well-
to-do Indian women, a mother and a daughter, who
gave $50,000 for a girls' dormitory at Murrow,
countless little Indian orphan girls will be housed
and trained to useful Christian womanhood.
116 AMERICA TOMORROW
Indians are very devoted to the orphans of their
race, and give generously and gladly to provide for
them and often adopt one of them into their own
family.
Another instance of Indian generosity and of in-
terest in the orphans of their race, is the purchase
of eighty acres of fine farming land, adjoining the
one hundred acres of Bacone College, by a man and
his wife, that the Murrow Orphanage might have
a campus of its own. These large gifts must not
give the impression that the Indians generally are
amassing fortunes. True it is that a few have
profited by the discovery of oil under their allot-
ments, but the great majority of these first Amer-
icans are very poor. In their poverty many are
giving generously that the orphans of their race
may have a home where they can be trained for
Christian leadership.
Since the time of its founding the Woman's
American Baptist Home Mission Society has sup-
ported teachers and matrons both at the Bacone
University and Murrow Orphanage, so that they
have a large interest in the success of mothering and
giving Christian education to motherless Indian
children.
That the Indian children are very bright is shown
by the fact that four of the Orphanage boys did a
year and a half of work in one year, while a fifth
boy not only did all of two years' work in one, but
had the highest average in the first five grades.
At the table the older boys and girls take turns
in saying grace. They do it reverently and well,
ORPHANAGES 117
thus learning by practise to add this worthy habit
to the other Christian customs they are acquiring.
Various tribes are represented among the chil-
dren of the Orphanage, and even though they be-
come members of the family at a very early age,
they have had instilled in them pride of tribe. A
little girl who recently arrived, was asked by one
of the matrons if she was a Christian. "No," an-
swered the little girl proudly, " I am a Choctaw."
A little boy, who was also a Choctaw, came all alone
from Mississippi. He soon forgot his homesick-
ness and is developing under the care and influence
of the Orphanage into a fine Christian lad. At the
close of revival meetings last fall ten boys were
received into the church by baptism, and ten have
read the Bible through.
What will the Indian of tomorrow be? Every
effort made to give to Indian boys and girls educa-
tion, and the religion of Jesus Christ helps to solve
this problem. The hope of the race lies in the
Christian development of its youth, for " the youth
of today is the man of tomorrow." The greatest
gift we Baptists can give to the children of the
Orphanage is the religion of the Book. " When you
read out of that book," said an old chief of the
Mohaves, " I know it is God's book, for it swells my
heart." The opportunity to raise up a strong Chris-
tian leadership from the children of the Orphanage
ought to inspire in every Christian pale-face the
determination to do his bit toward the maintenance
of this splendid institution for the orphaned chil-
dren of his red brothers.
118
AMERICA TOMORROW
3. " AN INSTITUTION WITH A HEART "
By "MRS. J. S. COMSTOCK
That is what Julian Street called " The Leonard
St. Orphan's Home," of Atlanta, Ga. Among his
" American Adventures " he counted his visit to this
home one of the most interesting. " The Home," he
Little Sisters, (Hear Me)
said, " is a humble frame building which was used
as barracks for Northern troops stationed in Atlanta
after the Civil War. In it reside Miss Amy Chad-
wick, her helpers, and about seventy little Negro
girls, and it is a fact worth noting that several of the
helpers are young colored women who, themselves
ORPHANAGES 119
brought up in the Home and taught to be self-sup-
porting, have been drawn back to the place by home-
sickness. Was ever before an orphan homesick for
an orphan's home? "
The Home was founded by Miss L. M. Lawson in
1890. Her endowment was " My God shall supply
all your need." This endowment never failed her,
even when loss of health in 1903 compelled her to
give up this loved work. The " need " of a new
leader " God supplied " in this providential way :
Miss Amy A. Chadwick, an English woman, who
came to America some years ago, and graduated
from the Northfield Bible Training School, went
South to visit our Spelman Seminary and heard that
the Home was about to be closed because there was
no one to take up the work. After careful and
prayerful consideration, Miss Chadwick, without
any missionary board or organization behind her
took hold of this orphanage which was both literally
and figuratively falling to pieces. How successful
she has been it is hard to convey in words. Not
that she has succeeded in building up a great nour-
ishing plant with all improvements. Far from it.
The Home is not nearly large enough for its pur-
pose, and there are anxious hours over the forth-
coming of money necessary to keep it going. Its
success is not in its material possessions, but in the
fact that it is in a real sense a Home, giving not only
a shelter, but love and mothering to those who piti-
fully need it. " How Miss Chadwick does this,"
said Julian Street, " is something which only she
and heaven understand. But if you ever visit the
120 AMERICA TOMORROW
Home and meet Miss Chadwick and see her with her
children, you will know that heaven and Miss Chad-
wick understand a lot of things the rest of us don't
know about at all."
Not only Atlanta but all that portion of the South
is safer and more Christian today because hundreds
of little Negro girls have been rescued from environ-
ments of ignorance and vice and in this Home have
developed into simple, genuine Christian characters.
In the admission of children, preference is given to
those without parents. Sometimes they are deserted
by either father or mother, or both, but there are
also children taken from homes where parents are
not fit to rear them. The Home has a number of
families of two, three, or four children, sometimes
more. Every opportunity of the daily home life is
used to help each girl individually. Of course they
are just like other children the world over, and
while they always need love and happiness, they
sometimes need wise discipline. Daily devotions
have an honored place in the program of the Home
life, when hymns are sung, Bible stories told,
memory verses recited, and " mother talks " given.
They also have their own Sunday school at the Home,
but the larger girls go to church services at Spelman
Seminary.
One great advantage of the Orphanage location
is that it is very near Spelman Seminary. Miss
Chadwick greatly appreciates the privilege of send-
ing her girls to this Christian school. All the chil-
dren of school age go as day pupils to Spelman
Seminary. They are registered in every grade in-
George Ernest Barrow Blackman
ORPHANAGES 121
eluding high school. A few enter as boarders, earn-
ing part of their schooling, and graduate. Spelman
admits to its classes free of charge the girls who are
entirely supported by the Home. So while the Home
itself is under no board and is strictly undenomi-
national, the Baptists, through Spelman, furnish all
the educational facilities for the children and are
thus in a very vital way linked up both in interest
and responsibility with the development of the chil-
dren of the Home.
During the time that the children of the Home
are taught daily in Spelman, the playroom of the
Home is given to the Free Kindergarten Association,
a band of Negro women who hold themselves re-
sponsible for the maintenance of several mission
kindergartens. This Association pays the salary of
the teacher who was one of the Home's own girls
and also a graduate of the Kindergarten Normal
Department of Atlanta University. Daily the
" Home " kindergarten gathers twenty-five to thirty
children who would otherwise be locked in the house
or left on the street to play while their mothers are
out at work. Thus the Home helps to meet some of
the needs of the children in the neighborhood, be-
sides ministering to its own family.
" What becomes of the girls nurtured and trained
in the Home, and educated by Spelman ? " is the
question often asked. Some return to relatives and,
by putting into practise the training they have re-
ceived, make clean, attractive, comfortable homes
out of the places that were dirty and degrading be-
fore. Some enter the domestic service, others
122 AMERICA TOMORROW
marry. There are many who become teachers,
nurses, dressmakers, stenographers, typists, etc.
Each little Negro girl brought to the Home to be
housed and loved, and to receive manual, mental,
moral, and religious training means not only a girl
saved from ignorance and vice to a life of blessed
useful service, but the establishment later of a home
in which she will be the mother or homemaker, and
which she will make a sweet center of Christian in-
fluence out of which shall go boys and girls trained
to Christian living, an ever-widening circle of Chris-
tian manhood and womanhood that will save Amer-
ica and make it the land of the noble ideals of which
our pioneer Pilgrim Fathers dreamed.
The cry of the children goes up from all over the
world today as never before. Many Christians have
heard and given to the relief of the suffering chil-
dren of Europe. Truly a blessed service. " This
ought ye to have done " but not to let go unheeded
the call of the little colored girls of our own land.
This call Miss Chadwick, a giant in faith and hope,
but frail in body, has tried to answer with love and
self-sacrifice at the Leonard St. Orphanage. " Her
inspiration " which every Christian ought to
" catch " is the spirit of the great loving heart of the
Good Shepherd who seeks and seeks until he shall
find and save every last little child in all the world.
The Lost Sheep
VII
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN
VII
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN
By INA SHAW
Chinese
There has been a decrease of about twenty per
cent, in the Chinese population of the United States
during the past twenty years. There are compara-
tively few homes, as the men far outnumber the
women. This means few Chinese children. Because
of their extreme conservatism the Chinese are slow
to adopt American ways and American dress. They
are honest and reliable in business. Many of the
children, especially boys, are here without parents,
having been sent to be educated in America. The
zeal for learning is very marked. Baptist work has
been carried on for fifty years among these people.
San Francisco
The largest Chinese community in the United
States is to be found in San Francisco.
Work was begun in this city in 1870 by The
American Baptist Home Mission Society. In 1883 a
day-school was opened by the Woman's American
Baptist Home Mission Society. Today the work is
supported by these two Societies and the San Fran-
cisco Bay Cities Baptist Union. The present building
was dedicated in 1908. The first floor is used for
chapel and social rooms. The second story is given
over to the school. The public-school curriculum is
followed, and the sessions coincide with those of
125
126 AMERICA TOMORROW
the Oriental School. There are three groups of
children : Kindergarten, under Miss Josephine Lar-
zelere; the primary, taught by Miss Faith Long-
fellow, and the boys from ten to thirteen, taught by
Miss Hetty Evans. Most of Miss Evans' boys are
nominal orphans who have come to America for an
education. They sleep in back rooms of stores or
gambling-dens. Miss Evans deals with a procession.
Often as soon as a boy learns some English he goes
to the public school, and his place is filled by a lad
just over from China. It is a wonderful thing to
have the first impression that of Christianity. Miss
Grace Chan, a graduate of one of our mission schools
in China, and teacher of our Chinese Language
School, gives a Bible lesson to these boys every day,
and three times a week they attend the chapel
exercises of the school.
Miss Longfellow has her little people divided into
classes which bear the interesting names of " Sun-
beam," "Knights/' "Moon Class," "Star Class,"
" Blue Birds," and " Soldiers." The work is so ar-
ranged that these groups can be taken in turn to
the kindergarten where Miss Chan gives them their
daily Bible story in Chinese. The children are
taught Scripture verses, even whole chapters. They
love to sing about Jesus. One day they had just
finished singing about how Jesus loves the birds
and flowers and children, and Miss Longfellow said,
" Does Jesus love all children ? " The answer came
in chorus, "Yes." "Little American children?"
"Yes." "Little Chinese children?" "Yes"; still
louder, "Little Japanese?" Out from the chorus
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 127
of yeses came a loud, determined " No " from the
biggest boy in the room.
Ah Lai, a Knight of eight years, loves to hear
the Jesus stories. He comes from a family that ob-
serves the heathen rites of worship. On day he told
the following incident : " My mother tell us all to
worship idol. We all kneel down in a row before
the altar as usual, mother and all of us children.
Then when she tell us bow and bow herself, I slip
away and crawl under bed. I not want to worship
idol, I want to pray Jesus. After while when she
get up, she cannot see me. She call me, and I come
out from under bed. So I not worship." And the
little rascal went off chuckling as he remembered
how he had outwitted his mother.
Ah Lai's chum, another Knight of about the same
age, also loves Jesus. George said one day, " I al-
ways pray to Jesus before I eat, but sometimes
everybody is talking and it is so noisy, and so I go
away into the bedroom and pray there, and then
come back and eat."
The kindergarten, as usual, is the most interesting
place in the building. Sessions are held only in the
afternoon. Miss Larzelere is assisted by Miss
Chan in caring for forty bright little boys and girls.
Especially quaint are the girls in their foos and
shams, with black hair decorated in American fash-
ion with a big bow of bright ribbon. Miss Larzelere
was astonished one day to have a mother bring in a
little girl in a much beruffled American dress. She
exclaimed that she thought the child a boy, as she
had often seen her in boy's clothes. She learned
128 AMERICA TOMORROW
later that the mother had dressed her thus in order
to fool the evil spirits and make them think she was
a boy.
Miss Larzelere was calling one day. Seeing a
four-year-old sitting on a doorstep she addressed
her in Chinese. The little girl laughed and an-
swered her in excellent English, which she had
learned from an older brother.
One day one of the kindergarten children was
being taken through Golden Gate Park by a mission-
ary. They came abruptly upon a statue of Buddha
in the Japanese Tea Garden. Instantly the little
lad was on his knees before the image, touching the
ground with his forehead. The rankest heathenism
sometimes exists among these little Americans who
are the citizens of tomorrow, but contrast this little
beginner in our school with Ah Lai and George.
There is a well-attended Bible school held every
Sunday at twelve o'clock. The officers and some
of the teachers are Chinese.
A new home for Chinese boys has been opened in
West Berkeley, The American Baptist Home Mission
Society and the San Francisco Bay Cities Baptist
Union cooperate in this work. The building is a
commodious residence, with a yard for playground.
It accommodates thirty boys and the staff. There are
three classes of boys for which the home provides
care, namely, orphans, half-orphans, and unfortu-
nates. By half-orphans are meant boys who have
only one parent living, or whose mothers are in
China. The unfortunates are those whose parents
have been deemed by the Juvenile Court unfit to rear
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 129
children. The boys are under a semi-military
regime. They have household duties assigned them
and are given instruction in housework, cooking,
waiting tables, and gardening. They attend a public
school where there are twenty different nationalities
and the teachers show a sympathetic interest in the
foreigner. The boys worship in a near-by American
church and attend that Sunday school. Sunday
evenings there is held in the home a religious service
that will stand out as a blessed memory in the lives
of these boys. The Chinese people are so apprecia-
tive of this effort that they raised among themselves
$4,000 for the furnishing of the building.
Fresno
There are many well-to-do Chinese in Fresno who
live in nice homes, but the majority are crowded
into the Chinese center. However, the younger gen-
eration is quite Americanized. It was on this field
that an unusually bright high-school girl of four-
teen years (she has had several stories accepted by
magazines) came to the Mission one day and said :
" Mother forced me to offer rice before the altar this
morning, but I really didn't worship. I talked En-
glish, and mother couldn't understand. I said, 'I
should worry, Old Top, I don't believe in you any-
way.' "
The work in Fresno was opened in 1883 by the
First Baptist Church, and the Woman's American
Baptist Home Mission Society soon commissioned a
worker for the field. Miss Amy Purcell is now their
missionary. The Northern California State Con-
130 AMERICA TOMORROW
vention and The American Baptist Home Mission
Society own the building, carry the running ex-
penses, and support Mr. Ye, the native pastor, who
comes once a month from Sacramento.
The Sunday school is the principal missionary
activity for the children. However, Miss Purcell
is in daily contact with them. The Cradle Roll bears
the name of sixty babies, fifteen of whom come to
Sunday school occasionally. In this way Miss Pur-
cell obtains a special touch with the mothers. Some
of the young mothers and fathers have given their
hearts to Christ. The Bible work of the school is
unusually strong. The children love to memorize
Scripture. The little ones will learn the assignments
which are made to the older ones. Eunice and Ruth,
two little girls in the Sunday school, were given New
Testaments by their teacher because of proficiency
in memory work. A few days later Eunice came to
the Mission and said : " I can't find the Ten Com-
mandments in my Bible at all. May I take one of
these home with me? " Her teacher had not asked
for the memorizing of the Commandments as yet.
When Miss Purcell meets the children on the street
the greeting is : "I know ' The Lord is my Shep-
herd,' " or " I am learning the Lord's Prayer," or
" See what I bought," holding up a Bible. " Please
show me where the ' Blessed Verses ' are."
One day visitors came to the Daily Vacation Bible
School with a treat. After the children had finished
their ice-cream Miss Purcell said, " Now we will
have to thank our visitors, won't we? " Poon Gim
piped up quickly, " We don't have to, we'd rather."
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 131
Sacramento
The work on the field at Sacramento is primarily
with young men and is supported by the Northern
California State Convention and The American
Baptist Home Mission Society. There are few chil-
dren on the field. A Bible school is held every
Sunday afternoon, and the regular lesson work is
conducted.
Locke
The work on this field is only a little over four
years old, and is supported by the Woman's Amer-
ican Baptist Home Mission Society, The American
Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Northern
California State Convention. Locke is a typical
Chinese village on the banks of the Sacramento,
about forty miles from the city of Sacramento.
Gambling-dens and red-light houses abound. The
latter are run by Americans. The population
changes according to the season. The people work
on the fruit ranches of the valley. There are very
few women and children in the community. An at-
tractive new building was dedicated in October, 1922.
The Chinese are all very much in sympathy with
the work of the Mission. Even the proprietors of
the gambling-houses will bring their children to
the kindergarten. All the little ones of kindergarten
age are now enrolled. The children are eager to
come, and the only trouble is in keeping away those
who are too young. It is interesting to see them on
a cold day. The poor little dears are so padded with
132 AMERICA TOMORROW
clothes (sometimes wearing three sweaters under a
coat) that their little arms stick out from their
bodies, and they can stoop with great difficulty to
pick up a doll or toy from the floor. They are little
Americans, but practically none of them spoke En-
glish until Miss Maxwell came to the field.
Between twenty-five and forty children are daily
in the Mission building, as Miss Maxwell conducts
the kindergarten, gives music lessons, supervises
practise, and directs their play. The Mission yard
is the children's playground, although no equipment
has as yet been provided.
The Sunday school is not organized because of a
lack of sufficient teaching force, but is largely at-
tended. A number of the older children have pro-
fessed Christ. A Junior B. Y. P. U. meets Sunday
evenings.
An Industrial School is held on Saturdays. The
regular handwork and sloid are taught. The exer-
cises are in English, but the children read out of
their Chinese Bibles, and some of the older ones
lead in prayer. A Boy Scout Troop has been organ-
ized. The Methodist Japanese missionary at Walnut
Grove, a mile away, speaks most appreciatively of
how the Mission at Locke has changed the atti-
tude of the Chinese children toward the Japanese,
saying that they now play together in the best of
fellowship.
In September another young woman will be sent
to the field to be associated with Miss Maxwell, and
work will be opened in the near-by towns of Court-
land, Walnut Grove, and Isleton. This is Baptist
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 133
territory, and these little black-haired, black-eyed
Americans wait for us to teach them of Jesus and
his love.
Portland
Both national Boards withdrew from the Chinese
work in Portland in the spring of 1922. It is now
carried on by the Chinese themselves and the Bap-
tist Young People's Unions of the city. ' The Chinese
of Portland are merchants and restaurateurs. Many
of them live in good homes and hold to none of their
old customs. There are second and third generation
Americans among the children. These rarely speak
Chinese and much prefer to attend the American
churches. The children are dainty and attractive,
and all who come to the Mission wear American
clothes. The room which is rented for the services
is so small that the Sunday school must be held in
two sessions. Over a hundred children are taught
God's word and Christian songs every week.
Seattle
Work in Seattle was opened some fifteen years
ago. The two national Boards and the Western
Washington State Convention cooperate on this field.
There are some twelve hundred Chinese, living for
the most part in rather restricted quarters. A beau-
tiful and well-adapted building was dedicated in
October, 1922. Here are centered the missionary
activities, though the home of the missionaries on
Fifteenth Avenue is open house for Chinese children
and mothers. A well-organized Sunday school is
134 AMERICA TOMORROW
conducted every Sunday morning. The Cradle Roll
numbers ninety-five babies. The beginners are
taught by a Chinese young woman, a student at the
Washington State University. Miss Skiff has
charge of the Primary Department. Miss Snape
directs the juniors. The latter department is very
much alive and has grown by leaps and bounds the
past year. The Junior Boosters, a class of boys, won
the aeroplane contest in the Sunday school for 1923.
The Chinese Baptist Young People's Union won the
attendance banner three successive times at the Dis-
trict Rally, competing with the Unions of all the
American churches, as well as the Japanese. This
gave them the efficiency banner.
A kindergarten is conducted four mornings a
week under Miss Skiff's supervision. A playground
back of the church is the acme of bliss for these little
tots who have nowhere to play except the streets.
Three swings, two teeter-boards, and a wonderful
slide cause teacher anxious moments during play
hours, but fill the children's hearts with joy.
An industrial school is held once a week by Miss
Snape. The Tuckabatchee Club, whose member-
ship is open to girls from eleven to sixteen years, is
modeled along the lines of the Campfire Groups. The
girls have their own officers and follow parliamen-
tary law in conducting their meetings. They have
composed the words of their Club song. The Club
name means, "Add to and stick together," and the
girls are trying to live up to this idea. A Sunday-
school class in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, has become
very much interested in the Club and has named
Chinese Woman Going to English Lesson
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 135
its class " The Tuckabatchee." The girls correspond
regularly with the members of the Club and have
sent each Chinese girl a Bible.
There are many American churches that are con-
ducting Sunday schools for Chinese, and the Mon-
tana State Convention and The American Baptist
Home Mission Society have a work in Butte, Mon-
tana, where a few children are cared for.
Fifteen Minutes on the Chinese Kindergarten Play-
ground, Seattle
The kindergartner's enthusiasm is boundless, and
the missionary teacher with no helper and twenty-
five little would-be acrobats, is kept busy enough.
" Peter/' she calls to a five-year-old, " you must
sit down and slide when you reach the top of the
steps ; if you don't, you keep all the rest of the line
waiting for you."
" Paul," she commands, " use your handkerchief
right away! I have told you that, one, two, three,
four, five, six times this morning. Why don't you
remember it yourself as the other children do?"
"Teacher, Ah Yit not lemember! See? Him
not lemember." Teacher turns to Ah Yit and sighs ;
it is too true. Ah Yit has not " lemembered."
But Ah Yit, first son of the house of Wong,
clutches Teacher's dress with small grimy fingers:
" Teacher, him," pointing to a little girl, " him won't
give me swing ; him all time swing himself ! " Teacher
calls to usurper : " Precious Jade, don't you know
that the swing is for all of you children ? It is for
Ah Yit just as much as for you," Precious Jade
136 AMERICA TOMORROW
smiles sweetly and calls back, "All light, I give him
swing."
" Teacher," calls a four-year-old, " my coat too
hot, I take him off."
" Teacher," echoes a three-year-old who is not
wearing a coat, " my hat too hot, me take him off."
Immediately a dozen children rush to Teacher with
their wraps.
Just here Teacher sees the two-and-a-half -year-old
twins sitting peacefully upon the ground directly
under one of the teeter-boards, and four older chil-
dren about to mount the board. Teacher jumps to
the rescue of her beloved twins, and not a second too
soon. " Ruth and Esther," she admonishes their
uncomprehending ears, " don't you know that if
the teeter-board came down on your heads, you
wouldn't be little twin girls any more, but just .little
twin pan-cakes?"
A commotion starts in the locality of the swings.
Mamie, aged five, had swung Little Sister, aged
three, till she thought it was her own turn for a
swing, and told Little Sister so. But Little Sister
did not see the matter in that light and refused to
leave the swing, whereupon Mamie gently but firmly
removed her. Little Sister promptly threw herself
flat upon the ground and kicked and screamed with
all her might. Teacher thought perhaps the exercise
would do her good and ordered that the play should
go on and that everybody should leave Little Sister
alone till she got ready to get up and be "a nice little
girl."
"Teacher," calls Golden Flower, "me drink of
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 137
water, please," remembering her lessons on man-
ners. " Me drink of water too, please," calls Ah
Lin. Teacher helps ten children get drinks of
water. Unless she helps them, small Ah Sing will
hold a finger under the running water in such a
way as to direct the water toward the laughing
and screaming children till they are drenched. When
this happens Teacher does not share their rejoicing.
It is now time for the children to go home to
lunch, and Teacher calls them to come in and get
ready. Only two respond, so she calls again. This
time Ah King answers : " I not like dinner. I like
swing." Then Little Steven calls : " Me no likee
dinner too. Me likee swing." And the Kindergarten
Mascotte, Baby Foy, seated in a swing, calls in
Chinese for somebody to come and push her, and
adds in her own English, " Me fing some more."
Ah Sen
Ah Sen was born fourteen years ago in one of our
big cities on the Western Coast. She has never been
on a train and only recently on a boat when she went
with other Chinese to a B. Y. P. U. rally. She is very
bright and has taken advantage of every oppor-
tunity that came to her for an education. She has
always gone to Sunday school. Three years ago
a Crusaders' Band was organized, and she became
very much interested in the study of Africa. She
decided to become a missionary. Though she was a
Christian at heart, her parents would not consent
to her being baptized at first because they felt she
did not fully understand. However, she was one
138 AMERICA TOMORROW
of the first to be baptized on the dedication day of
the new church. She is still interested in Africa
but feels now that since she knows the Chinese lan-
guage, she can do more good in China among her
own people. She is now Sunday-school librarian,
an officer in the B. Y. P. U., and active in all the
girls' work of the church.
Japanese
The Japanese population of the United States has
quadrupled in the last twenty years. As a people
they are keen, adaptable, gracious and energetic;
ninety per cent, of their children in our country are
Americans, having been born here. In caring for
them we are training future citizens. They are most
attractive with their black hair and eyes and pink-
cheeked round faces. Unlike the Chinese children,
they practically all come from their own homes,
where the Japanese language is spoken. However,
they are educated in our public schools, and prefer
to speak and read English.
As a denomination we do little work among them.
Seattle
Baptists were the first to open work among the
Japanese in Seattle. The American Baptist Home
Mission Society appointed Mr. T. Okazaki in 1892.
In March, 1904, Mrs. Okazaki was appointed by the
Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society.
Mr. and Mrs. Okazaki are still on the field. In 1915,
the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission So-
ciety built the Japanese Woman's Home. In Octo-
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 139
ber, 1922, a beautiful new church was dedicated,
which is well adapted to institutional activities and
is a busy work-house every day and evening in the
week. The field is now supported by the two
national Boards, The Western Washington State
Convention, and the local Japanese, who are for the
most part merchants and live in modern, comfortable
homes.
A nursery department has been added to the work
of the Japanese Woman's Home. Babies who have
been deprived of a mother's care either through
death or illness or the necessity of having to sup-
port the family, are provided for temporarily.
Their expenses are paid by relatives, and they are
given wholesome food and proper care.
A thirteen-months-old child whose mother had
died a month before, was brought from Bainbridge
Island last summer. He was a cunning bit of hu-
manity, but it was quite evident that he had rickets
and would need special care. The father was afraid
his baby would die of grief at being separated from
him and told the missionaries to charge any price
they pleased, but to provide for the constant cuddling
of his son and to feed him all the cake and candy he
wanted. Father, having taken lodgings at a near-by
hotel, came frequently to see how " sonny " was
getting along; thus several times a day father and
baby had to go through the agony of separation;
father sobbed, and baby screamed. Finally Miss
Rumsey told the man that it was quite evident he
could not harvest his strawberry crop without the
baby, so he would better take him back to the
140 AMERICA TOMORROW
Island. The father then consented to return to busi-
ness, but long-distanced every night to know how
baby was and came to see him once a week. At the
end of the season when he came to take his plump,
well-nourished child back to Japan, he was not only
convinced that scientific feeding and care was what
baby needed, but that he needed Christ both for
his own and baby's sake.
The Lovelight Kindergarten is conducted daily
in the new church building. The large southeast
room with its pretty pictures is not so attractive
nor half so interesting as the fifty little lads and
lassies who play and sing or listen eagerly to stories
told by Miss Harriett Dithridge, who is in charge.
An afternoon Play Garden is conducted on South
Seventh Avenue, where twenty-five children from
the poorer quarters of the Japanese district are
taught games, handwork, and Bible stories. The
non-Christian parents of these little ones so appre-
ciated the work being done that when -it was neces-
sary to cut down expenses, which meant the dis-
continuance of this Play Garden, they themselves
undertook the payment of the rent of the room.
Mr. Paul E. Gates has charge of the boys' work.
He has organized a Boy Scout Troop and conducts
organized Sunday-school class work among them.
Miss May Herd has charge of the girls' work. Be-
side her Sunday school class of charming teen-age
girls, she conducts week-day club work.
The gymnasium in the basement of the new
church is very popular, being used on alternate
nights by groups of girls and of boys. A social
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 141
game- and reading-room is open every night, where
boys and girls can spend their evenings in whole-
some surroundings.
The Sunday school is large and thoroughly organ-
ized. The officers and most of the teachers are
Japanese, but with the single exception of the be-
ginners all the teaching is done in English. The
children are taught to give regularly. One-tenth of
the Bible-school offering goes to the New World
Movement, one-tenth to the work of the church, and
the rest for supplies. The Bible drill that sometimes
marks the close of the intermediate department of
the school is most interesting. The girls vie with
the boys as to which group can win in the locating
of Bible references. The rapidity with which some
of these young people can find Scripture passages is
amazing.
Rural Work About Seattle
Because of lack of workers no week-day activities
can be conducted for the children of the rural com-
munities, but Bible schools are held in several places.
Miss Florence Rumsey visits in these rural homes.
One little two-year-old calls her the " Jesus grand-
mother." The same little one sings to the accompani-
ment of her toy piano "Jesus Loves Me, This I
Know." The Firwood Sunday School is also located
in a farming group and is conducted by a bride who
is a graduate of the Bible Training School, in Yoko-
hama. The Green Lake Sunday School is cared for
by a member of the local board of the Japanese
Woman's Home.
142 AMERICA TOMORROW
Port Blakeley.is the only genuine Japanese village
in the United States. It is built in terraces on the
hillside in a saw-mill community. The Bible school,
which is held in the. chapel built by the Japanese
themselves, is taught by high-school girls who have
grown up in the village. Miss Herd is in touch
with these girls. They receive their supplies from her
and report to her. For five months during the win-
ter and spring Miss Rumsey gives the primary and
junior children supplementary Bible instruction
similar to that given in the Daily Vacation Bible
Schools. At Winslow, Everett, and Medina, local
American churches are conducting Sunday schools
for Japanese children.
A unique work is being done by the Japanese
Baptist young people of Seattle under the direction
of the missionaries. Socials and parties are being
held, first in the rural communities young people
from Seattle going out to conduct them then in
the Seattle church. The boys and girls from the
rural communities are brought into the city and kept
over Sunday so that they can attend the regular
church services.
Moneta
Work was begun on this field in 1914 by Rev. H.
Y. Shibata under the auspices of the Los Angeles
City Mission Society, the Southern California Bap-
tist State Convention, and The American Baptist
Home Mission Society. The present attractive and
well-equipped building was erected in 1918 and oc-
cupies a prominent corner in the town of Moneta.
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 143
The parish covers a district with a radius of seven
miles from the chapel. The two thousand Japanese
are truck-gardeners and obtain something of the
community spirit by building their houses on the
corners of their land, thus making at least four
families near neighbors.
Mr. K. Egami is the present native worker. Miss
Olive Warren, of San Pedro, gives part time to this
field. The children are American born. In the sum-
mer of 1922 the Japanese of the community, greatly
appreciating the work of the Mission, purchased an
auto-bus for Mr. Egami 's use in carrying the chil-
dren to and from Sunday school. It is an interesting
sight to see Mr. Egami on Sunday afternoon bring-
ing the crowds of children to the chapel. The exer-
cises are conducted for the most part in the Japanese
language, as Mr. Egami superintends. The Sun-
shine Class of older girls is organized and meets
every Saturday under the supervision of their
teacher, Mrs. Swanson, who gives much time to this
work.
Beside the work at Moneta, Mr. Egami conducts
a school on Sunday morning at Compton, the center
of another farmer group. Fifty children attend
this school. Saturday morning a Bible school is held
at Dominguez, where a group of forty children are
taught Jesus' love.
San Pedro
In 1917 work was begun at East San Pedro among
the Japanese fishermen by the Los Angeles City
Mission Society, the Southern California State Con-
144 AMERICA TOMORROW
vention, and The American Baptist Home Mission
Society. Mr. Shibata was the first missionary.
Meetings were held in the homes of the Japanese.
In 1918 the present building was erected. Later
Miss Olive Warren was appointed by the Woman's
American Baptist Home Mission Society to work on
this field.
The chapel is an attractive roomy place of the
bungalow type, built on the shore of the Island,
overlooking the harbor. Its capacity is taxed every
Sunday morning by the little Americans of Japa-
nese parentage, who swarm under its roof.
Miss Warren is in almost daily touch with the
children in their homes, and Mr. and Mrs. M. Ito, the
present native workers on the field, keep open house
for the lively junior members of their parish.
On Sunday mornings the children gather in front
of the chapel, looking like a colorful garden of many-
hued flowers in their bright dresses. At 9.30 sharp,
one of the older boys appears at the front door with
a drum. The children form in line and march in.
There are nearly two hundred of them, the Sunday
school having increased thirty per cent, in a few
months. The superintendent and four of the
teachers are Japanese. The songs are both Japanese
and English, but most of the teaching is done in
the foreign language. The children are very lively
and sing with great gusto.
Chizuko learned a little prayer in the Sunday
school and taught it to her two-and-a-half -year-old
sister. Now every night in a Buddhist home these
tiny tots say their prayer to Jesus.
WORK FOR ORIENTAL CHILDREN 145
Chizuko Saiko, a three-year-old, learned the Japa-
nese song " The One True God." She sang it over
and over at home. When a child the mother had
attended Sunday school in Japan. As she listened to
her little girl's singing she thought of what she had
heard years before in her own country. The child
was taken ill and sang this song in her delirium. The
mother was deeply impressed and began to study the
Bible. Just one month after her little daughter's
death she was buried with Christ in baptism. Then
she began bringing a neighbor woman daily to the
home of Mr. Ito that she too might study God's word.
So the leaven of this little life, only three years on
earth but brought into touch with Christ through
one of our missionaries, has just begun its work.
Miss Warren tried many times to start an indus-
trial school among the children but could not interest
them. At last she decided to try a Crusader's Band.
She now has an enthusiastic group of children reg-
ularly organized. Recently one little Crusader said,
" I don't believe in Buddha, I believe in Jesus."
Miss Warren is also spending one day a week in
the colony of Japanese at the Van Camp Sea Food
Company's cannery. The company has given her
a room in one of their houses. Here she has a play
garden for children who are too young to go to
school. Besides games and handwork the little
ones are taught Bible stories and Christian songs.
Mr. Fred Meyer, who is the Boys' Worker for the
Los Angeles City Mission Society, has on this field
a club of thirty-five Japanese boys between the ages
of twelve and seventeen. All but ten of these boys
146 AMERICA TOMORROW
were born in Japan. They are very bright and
absorb parliamentary law as though it were their
native element. They are keen and logical in debate
and good sports in athletics. Mr. Meyer is develop-
ing international friendship through the social
and athletic contests between this group and his
clubs at the Italian, Mexican, and Russian missions.
The Japanese boys show a more cosmopolitan spirit
and good-will than any other group.
Sacramento
In 1921, a group of Japanese asked our denomina-
tion to begin work in Sacramento. Mr. Shibata was
released from his work in Moneta and went to this
field in January, 1922. There is now an organized
church with a new building. The field is supported
by the Northern California State Convention, The
American Baptist Home Mission Society, and the
local Japanese.
Eighty children are attending the Sunday school.
Mr. Shibata is anxious to open a kindergarten and
week-day activities for the older children. Only
lack of funds and workers has prevented it thus
far. This is a field of unusual promise. The chil-
dren come from good homes and are exceedingly
bright and attractive, all of them Americans, hav-
ing been born under the Stars and Stripes.
VIII
SAVING THE CHILDREN IN
LATIN AMERICA
VIII
SAVING THE CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA
CHARLES S. DETWEILER
In 1921 upon the occasion of the first centennial
of Mexican independence all the different foreign
colonies in the capital erected memorials of different
kinds as their share in the celebration. Due to the
influence of the Y. M. C. A. the American colony
made a wide departure from the general custom.
Instead of erecting some piece of statuary in one
of the parks or boulevards, they presented the city of
Mexico with a well-equipped playground for its chil-
dren. This unusual gift represents the enlightened
attitude of North America toward the social prob-
lems of Latin America. It speaks of the growing
claim of childhood, of the importance of play in the
development of character, and of the readiest means
of approach to an alien people, namely, through an
interest in their children. The wise missionary in
any country will encourage the spread of athletic
games among the youth. It is not his primary busi-
ness to promote sport, but he will rejoice to see base-
ball or football supplant the cock-fight and gambling-
games.
The republics of Latin America are burdened with
a top-heavy civilization. A few, comprising the
privileged landowning class, enjoy all the opportuni-
ties of culture, while the great majority suffer for
the lack of common necessities of life. There is in
many a city a beautiful national or municipal theater
149
150
A M E RICA TOM OR ROW
built by public funds, but no public water-supply.
There is an electric light and an ice-plant, but no
public sewerage ; and strangest of all there is a uni-
versity where doctors and lawyers may be trained,
and no elementary schools worthy of the name for
the instruction of the masses. Any ci\ 7 ilization that
neglects its children is top-heavy.
Rapid Transit in Cuba
Description of Child Life
It is of course dangerous as well as difficult to at-
tempt a general description in any department of life.
At the outset it is necessary to state that what fol-
lows has to do with the common people, the great
illiterate, bare-footed majority who comprise as
many as seventy per cent, of the population of most
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA !.">!
of our neighboring- Latin republics. The children
in the homes of well-to-do families have the privi-
leges of good private schools, are often sent to the
United States for their preparatory and college
training, and generally are as well protected as
American children. But the case is different with
the poor. The average child in the Latin American
cities has no playground but the street, where he
may be seen dodging in and out of the corners .of
the building or playing around the fountains and
monuments in the very center of the town. Fre-
quently the streets are noisiest with the cries of
children at play in the evening hours from seven
to nine when the heat of the day is past. Most of
these children have no school facilities. An author-
ity in Mexico City has stated that not half of the
children in that large center are able to attend
school. Many of them are practically homeless.
Not every country has had the attention given to it
that Porto Rico has received. From a study of social
problems published in 1917 the statement is taken
that there are in Porto Rico ten thousand homeless
children under twelve .years of age who live by what-
ever means they are able, many of them begging or
stealing, and most of them having no permanent
lodging-place, sleeping at night in boxes or on door-
steps. These children are for the most part deserted
children of illegitimate parentage, or orphans whose
parents have left no provision for their care, and
they constitute a fertile soil for the implanting of
criminal tendencies. It is sad indeed to hear the
language used by the average child of ten and twelve
152
AMERICA TOMORROW
years of age anywhere in Latin America. They are
wise beyond their years in that which is evil. Little
can be expected of those who have been denied the
discipline of a father or perhaps of both father and
mother.
At the root of every social problem in Latin Amer-
Central American Boys Who Lack a Chance
fca is childhood unprotected by sound marriage cu~~
toms and proper home training. It is difficult to
conceive of proper family life where there is lack
of physical equipment necessary for a home. The
living accommodations of the average poor family
are very unsatisfactory, consisting as they do of a
dwelling-house of one room or at the most two. This
reduced house space makes it necessary to live, eat,
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 153
and sleep in the same room, rendering impossible
any degree of privacy on the part of any. In the
case of growing boys and girls such a condition is
very undesirable. Very rare indeed is it to see a
family where all members sit down together around
the table to eat their meals; generally they eat as
they can most conveniently get the food, without
order or waiting upon one another.
While all of these countries are nominally Roman
Catholic, there has been no provision made for
giving religious instruction except in the day-
schools. As more than half the school population is
not in school, it means that there is no religious in-
struction for most children. Frequently, when
pushed by the competition of Protestant mission-
aries, the priests will have a class in Christian doc-
trine on Sunday afternoon for the children, but as a
rule the poor and the rural populations of Latin
America have been neglected in the ministries of
the Catholic Church.
Missionary Agencies
First in importance and first in order of time in
reaching children of any country is the Sunday
school. The more attention that is given to teacher-
training and Sunday-school organization, the more
permanent will the missionary work be. In the
large cities in Latin America, where the work is
well established, the evangelical churches have a fair
equipment for their Sunday schools. There is to be
found the division into departments and in many
cases independent classrooms, but for the most part
154 AMERICA TOMORROW
in the smaller towns and in all new places the Sun-
day school must be held in one room where the
children recite their Bible texts and listen to the
explanation of the teacher amid a hubbub of voices.
So important is the work of the Sunday school on
the mission field that in most of our stations in Latin
America no attempt is made to hold a morning
preaching service, but the whole period of worship
is given up to the classes in Bible. In some places
such as Ponce and Caguas, Porto Rico, we have
Sunday schools ranging from two hundred to four
hundred in attendance.
Side by side with the development of the Sunday
school there is often felt the necessity of a day-
school. There are several reasons why it devolves
upon evangelical missions to open day-schools. In
the first place, poor people are largely deprived of
school facilities, and it is among the poor that the
evangelical work first takes root. In the second
place, there is in most countries instruction in
Roman Catholic doctrine in these public schools, and
the children of Protestant parents ought not to have
to be submitted to this kind of teaching. In the
third place the discipline and instruction of the
average public school in Latin America is very low
grade. We visited a public school in one of the
towns in Nicaragua. There were two rooms, two
teachers, and about a dozen pupils in each room.
The teacher had a little girl recite a lesson in geog-
raphy for us. It was a wonderful exhibition of
memory training to hear this child glibly recite the
names of countries, states, and capitals. At the
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 155
close of her recitation we learned that she was
only six years old. When examined in reading it
was found that she was only beginning to make
out the syllables. Her learning of the lesson in
geography was a pure feat of memory. In the re-
Central American Boys and Girls Who Have a Chance
port of an American educational advisor sent to
Nicaragua we find the following:
Many of the subjects comprising the course of study from
the first to the fifth grade are not suitable for children of
tender age. For example, grammar, composition, geometry,
history, and civics are undoubtedly out of place in the first
years of a child's schooling.
If we are to have evangelical churches whose mem-
bers shall be lovers of the Bible, studying it for
156 AMERICA TOMORROW
themselves, we must provide schools for the chil-
dren of our members where they may obtain at least
the rudiments of an education.
Of late years a Daily Vacation Bible school has
been introduced in Porto Rico. As many as three
have been held in one summer with most excellent re-
sults, and it is hoped that this work will spread. If
we help the parents in the caring for their children
during the long days of vacation when they have
nothing to interest them except what they may find
in the streets, we shall not only meet a deep need
but shall also win the lasting gratitude of the
parents.
More efficient yet is the boarding-school of which
there are all too few in our Baptist fields. The
most notable one is at Cristo, Cuba, where there are
three hundred children in attendance for a year.
Where there is a boarding-school, it is possible to
secure children from the very best homes of the
country, many of them coming from a distance and
from the country where there are no school oppor-
tunities. A second school that gives promise of
equaling the college at Cristo, is the one conducted
by the Woman's Society at Managua, Nicaragua.
Here there is also a capacity attendance reaching
close up to two hundred in the short space of four
years. The school has been developed until it al-
ready gives two years of high-school training.
Property has been purchased near-by for the open-
ing of a boys' department.
In organized systematic effort to save children
of Latin America we have made but a beginning.
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 157
A great majority of children are from rural homes
where the only occupation is agriculture. We shall
not have discharged our duty until we give an
example to each of these countries of industrial edu-
cation. It will not be easy to have an agricultural
school. Due to the centuries of feudalism in the
social and political life of these Latin countries the
tradition has grown up that the cultivation of the
soil is the work of only the lowest class. It is
thought to be unworthy of a man who knows how
to read and write to work with the hoe or the spade.
Every boy coming from the country to go to school
wants to raise himself in the social rank; conse-
quently it is not easy to find pupils who want to re-
main on the farm. When the government of Porto
Rico opened a well-equipped agricultural college, of
the few students who came at first, all wanted to
take an engineering course. Although many free
scholarships, including board and room, were of-
fered, it was difficult to secure boys who were willing
to take the agricultural course. To overcome this
prejudice requires persistent effort and patience.
It is especially necessary, if the self-respect of the
young people is to be preserved, that those who
receive aid in their education should make some re-
turn in the way of manual labor.
Fruits of Christian Education
Out in the little town of Jibacoa, Cuba, is a young
man who is the mainstay of a Baptist church. Thir-
teen years ago he was a ten-year-old boy in our
school at Cristo, Cuba. He was then a little rascal
158 AMERICA TOMORROW
in the eyes of his teachers, and though he remained
two years in school, they saw little promise in him of
a serious-minded youth. Seven years later, at the age
of nineteen, he returned to Cristo for further educa-
tion. The seed sown in this school had borne fruit.
He had now grown up to be a robust young man of
strict habits. When later on, his elder brother had
gambled away a large part of the family fortune, he
returned home to take hold of the farm. Now he is
the principal member of the church in that com-
munity, leading it in its efforts to improve its
meeting-house. At a recent convention in Cristo he
was the delegate of his church. In another one of
those country towns is a young lady from a family
of moderate circumstances. Seven years ago she
graduated from the grammar department of our
Cristo school. Now for some time she has been
teacher of the public school of her native town and
at the same time superintendent of the Baptist
Sunday school. If it were not for her there would
be no Sunday school and church, as there is no resi-
dent pastor. Whenever a missionary or neighbor-
ing pastor visits that village, she can be depended
upon to gather the people together for a preaching
service.
From the small town of Jobabo comes the news of
another Cristo girl now five years out of school,
happily married to an employee of a large sugar-
factory. She sought to do what lay next to her hand
in her new environment. So she conducts a day-
school of fifty pupils and on Sunday converts it into
a Sunday school, and has sent out an appeal for a
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 159
Baptist preacher to come and start religious work
in that center.
Who would have thought twenty years ago that in
that little Baptist Sunday school of Ciego de Avila
there would be found in a shy, bare-footed boy the
future leader of our strongest church? Missionary
The Products of Christian Education
Wilson took especial interest in this little fellow
and in time led him to Christian profession. Through
the missionary a scholarship was found for him
in our school at Cristo. In time he took up the
study of the Bible and theology and was graduated
from our seminary. He was the first Cuban pastor
to lead his church out into self-support.
All over eastern Cuba may be found in active ser-
160 AMERICA TOMORROW
vice those who were once boys and girls in the Baptist
school at Cristo. In San Luis is a physician who after
leaving Cristo went to the United States for his
medical education. Now he is a leader in the com-
munity and in the Baptist church. Others of those
boys and girls are pastors and pastors' wives. Some
are holding good positions in banks, one of them is
president of the Board of Education in the city of
Banes. The secret of a self-supporting church is
an educated ministry and laity. The strongest
church in Mexico now self-supporting for five years
is the one at Monterey where for many years the
Woman's Society has maintained a strong day-
school and where most of the older members have
been educated.
Recently revival meetings were held in a church
at Santiago where one of the little eight-year-old
pupils in that school wrote the following letter to his
father :
SANTIAGO, CUBA,
FEBRUARY 18, 1923.
MY DEAR PAPA:
What I promise you is that I will never smoke nor drink
wine nor rum of any kind.
Respectfully your son,
JOHN HENRY.
The father showed me with great pride and pleasure
this spontaneous expression of his son's decision,
and expressed his gratitude that the boy was in a
Christian school where character would be formed
according to the mind of Christ.
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 161
Other Forms of Service to Children
About ten years ago in Ponce, Porto Rico, the
heart of Miss Mary 0. Lake of the Woman's Amer-
ican Baptist Home Mission Society was burdened
by the needs of the babies and little children whose
mothers had to leave them at home while they went
out to work by the day. Some of these mothers
worked in factories, sorting coffee or stripping to-
bacco leaves; others worked in private homes as
cooks, all of them earning but a pittance, from forty
to fifty cents per day. The babies were entrusted
to neighbors, and the little children were left to
shift for themselves. The result of her exercise of
heart was the renting of a small house, and the
employment of one of the Porto Rican Baptist
women to care for these neglected children. A nom-
inal charge of five cents per day was made for each
child. In a short time the attention of a Porto-Rican
lady, not a Protestant, was called to this work, and
she asked the privilege of helping, with the result
that some of the business men of the city were in-
terested and became regular contributors. The
institution grew; a larger house was secured, the
Rotary Club of Ponce got behind it, and has now
been giving it regular support for a long time. The
ministry to little children appeals to all classes and
breaks down religious prejudice.
There was a time when an epidemic of measles
was sweeping through a crowded district of San
Juan, inhabited by the laboring classes and the very
poor. Milk was scarce and high, and because the
162 AMERICA TOMORROW
children were not getting proper food in their ill-
ness, they were dying rapidly. Miss Bischoff, the
Baptist missionary in San Juan, felt that something
should be done to save the children ; she noticed that
there were as many as eight and ten little coffins
carried by her house every day. An appeal to the
government was of no avail ; there were said to be
no funds. Then Miss Bischoff found a few women,
most of them from the foreign colony, who were
likewise exercised, and were discussing the organi-
zation of a committee to provide free milk for the'
poor. She threw herself into this work along with
missionaries of other churches, and the result was
that sufficient money was raised by popular appeal
through the newspapers, for free distribution of
milk tickets through the missionaries. One of the
wealthy women of the city, a leader in society and
a faithful member of the Roman Catholic Church,
threw herself heartily behind the Protestant mis-
sionaries in this effort to save the lives of children,
and later on she made public recognition of what
they had done, announcing to her friends that hence-
forth she was going to support what they were doing
for the poor, even though she did not belong to their
church. It was a thrilling testimony to the gospel
from such a prominent woman.
In 1917, Charles W. Tarleton, a Baptist layman
seventy-three years old presented himself with letters
of introduction to the General Missionary for Porto
Rico at Rio Piedras, asking for an assignment with-
out salary to some kind of missionary service. It
was a strange request, and at first seemed an impos-
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 163
sible one. How to place a man at that age, without a
knowledge of Spanish in any position was our prob-
lem. But such was the earnestness of the man, and
so versatile and experienced was he, that it was soon
seen the mission had received a gift from God of a
rich .personality. His first task was to undertake the
supervision of the building and grounds of the Theo-
logical Seminary ; soon he was conducting the board-
ing department; then he was training the boys in
gardening and poultry-raising; and finally he added
to all of these duties a class in the Greek New Testa-
ment. A graduate of Colby Academy and Brown
University, he had cherished the desire in early life
to go to the mission field, but financial reverses suf-
fered by his father compelled him to assume the bur-
dens of others. For the greater part of his life he
was a farmer and gardener. Finally, when he found
himself alone in the world, with none dependent upon
him, there revived the old longing to see service on
the foreign field. At the age of seventy-three, still
hearty and vigorous, he went to Porto Rico and made
a big place for himself in the life of the boys who
were preparing for the ministry. Those boys, now
in active service in the church, will never forget the
example of that life of devotion and unselfish ser-
vice for others. What they most needed was a living
illustration of the dignity of toil. " Otium cum
digging tatie " was the happy reply of Erskine to a
friend who discovered the great jurist digging in a
garden. There should be no discrepancy between
the Latin cum dignitate and the plain Irish " taters."
Two years of happy service, and one day Mr,
164 AMERICA TOMORROW
Tarleton was found prostrate and wounded, as a
result of a felonious attack, while he was engaged
alone in carpenter work on a mission building. He
lingered a few weeks and then quietly passed away,
having given his life to help train boys.
The Greatest Contribution of Protestant Missions to the
Life of the Nations
A few years ago a Baptist missionary superinten-
dent found himself on the same boat in Central
American waters with a Jesuit missionary superin-
tendent. They soon became engaged in friendly
conversation, discussing the conditions of their re-
spective work in Latin American countries. " There
is one thing in which your missionaries have the
advantage over ours, and one thing in which ours
have the advantage over yours," said the Baptist.
"What is that?" asked the Jesuit, all alert and
interested.
" Your missionaries are unmarried,'.' was the
reply. " They can be easily moved from one place
to another, and it does not require so much money
to support them as it does to support ours with their
families."
" Oh, yes," said the Jesuit priest, and he related
with great animation the story of some of his mis-
sionaries among the Indians of Mexico, living in
places where a delicate white woman could not make
a home, and subsisting upon the scantiest fare.
" Now tell me," he went on, " What is the advan-
tage you have over us ? "
" The advantage we have over you," said the Bap-
SAVING CHILDREN IN LATIN AMERICA 165
tist superintendent, " is that our missionaries are
married. And being married they can teach the
people and show them what a Christian homelife is."
" Oh, but we teach them about a Christian home-
life."
" Yes, you may teach them what is right, but you
cannot give them an example. And the facts show
that your teachings are not heeded."
This ended the discussion on that point. There
was nothing more to say. The greatest gift we can
give the people of Latin America, after the gift
of Christ through the word, is a Christian home.
In order to have Christian homes, there must be
Christian young people, prepared for marriage.
Therefore there must be Christian education for the
boys and girls.
IX
THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN
OF THE CHURCH
IX
THE EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN OF THE
CHURCH
By FRANK W. PADELFORD
Education is the contribution of the Christian
Church to the progress of civilization. Before the
Christian era education had been provided in a
limited way for the favored classes, but the idea that
education should be made available for all the people
had not dawned upon the world. Had the idea been
suggested it would have been vetoed by the ruling
powers, for they well understood that all educated
people could not be held in subjection.
The idea of an educated citizenship came directly
from the Christian church. This idea was inherent
in the very spirit of Christianity itself. The ideal of
Christianity has been to create a citizenship which
should be not merely right in its desires and aspira-
tions but intelligently right in its decisions. It was
He who insisted on the necessity of regeneration who
devoted his life to the ministry of teaching and of
education. Christianity is a system in which men
make their own independent decisions as to their
courses of action, therefore it is fundamentally im-
portant that they shall make these decisions aright,
not merely in the light of their own interests but in
the light of the interests of all their fellow men.
For this reason the Christian church early began
to found educational institutions. These were first
of all schools of the lower grade for the children of
169
170 AMERICA TOMORROW
the church. But the system grew rapidly. The
church could not be satisfied to give merely an ele-
mentary education. It perceived that if Christianity
was to become an influential factor in the world's
life, many of its people must have the highest edu-
cation possible. As early as A. D. 200 the church
had established a great Christian university at
Alexandria. This was followed by other institutions
of higher learning at various points, until the system
had covered the whole Christian world.
For many centuries, education remained almost
exclusively in the hands of the Christian church.
Not until very recent times have the States of Eu-
rope begun to share the responsibilty with the
Church. In America it was the Church which in-
spired the State with the ideals of education. Up
until the close of the Civil War a large part of the
secondary (high-school) education was conducted
by the Christian church and practically all the
higher (college and university) education was given
in institutions founded and controlled by it. It is
only since the close of that war that the State in
America has concerned itself with the higher edu-
cation of its citizens.
In the contribution to the building of a better
America the Baptists have had a distinct and valu-
able part. Their first venture in education, about
1760, was short-lived. An academy was opened in
New Jersey, but lack of support soon compelled
it to close its doors. The first successful effort was
launched by the famous Philadelphia Association
in 1762. This was the strongest association of Bap-
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 171
tists in this country at that time. Rhode Island was
selected as the only feasible place for a Baptist school
because this was the only colony in which the Bap-
tists had freedom of action. Brown University was
therefore founded at Warren, R. I., in 1765, and in
1770 was moved to Providence where it has since
developed into one of the great colleges of America.
It was 'not an easy task which that little band of
Baptists undertook in 1765. They were not a rich
people. They were divided among themselves, some
of them fearing that it was dangerous for Baptists
to provide an educated ministry. Moreover they
were everywhere spoken against, and there were
few colonies in which they were permitted to exer-
cise their religion unmolested. Nevertheless with a
spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion they gave them-
selves heroically to the task of providing an ade-
quate education for their children.
The second Baptist school was the Maine Literary
and Theological Institution, now Colby College,
founded in 1819, by a group of far-looking and ad-
venturous men who sailed up the Kennebec River
and laid the foundation of their school in the wilder-
ness of Maine. This was followed by the college at
Hamilton, New York, now Colgate University. A
group of men anxious about the education of the
Baptist ministry, gathered frequently in the home of
one of the deacons of the church, and after much dis-
cussion and prayer, they placed thirteen dollars on
the dining-room table as the foundation of a new
Baptist college.
The star of empire was rapidly moving westward,
172 AMERICA TOMORROW
and the Baptists closely followed its leading, and as
they went they planted their schools in Ohio, Illinois,
Michigan, Iowa, until the line extended clear to the
Pacific Coast. It is a long trail, and some of the
adventures were lost by the way, but there has sur-
vived a group of institutions, some of which have
already attained the strength of maturity, and
others are steadily moving into a strong position.
I. Our Baptist Schools for "America Tomorrow "
These institutions are divided into five classes :
1. The first are the academies. These schools
were established when there were few if any public
high schools. The high school has become such a
universal institution that it is difficult for us in this
generation to realize that up to the time of the Civil
War there were no public high schools except in the
larger cities. At many other points private acade-
mies were established and maintained by benevolent
citizens to give the more ambitious students a higher
education than the towns and cities were willing to
provide. There were large numbers of such schools
especially in the older Eastern States.
The Christian churches entered this field in a
large way and established many of these academies.
The Baptists were alive to their responsibility and
opportunity, and they dotted the land with these
Christian schools, wherever they had the means to
open them. The list of these schools would be a long
one if it could be reproduced, but this is an impossi-
bility for the complete roster was never made, and
many of the institutions were short-lived. But it
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 173
was a great contribution which the Baptists of an
earlier day made to the education of American
youth.
The situation has greatly changed now. The
public high schools have sprung up everywhere and
in a large measure have displaced these private in-
stitutions. It has been difficult for the latter to sur-
vive when education has been furnished free by the
state. But there is still a considerable group of
these Christian schools that have survived the rapid
changes, and that are coming now into a stronger
position of usefulness than they ever enjoyed in
" the good old days."
It will be interesting to note the list of these
schools and their locations. It will be noticed that
nearly all of them are in the Eastern States where
the schools were more firmly established when the
tide turned.
Name of Academy Location
Alderson Alderson, West Va.
Bethel St. Paul, Minn.
Coburn .Waterville, Me.
Colby New London, N. H.
Cook Montour Falls, N. Y.
Doane Granville, Ohio
Hebron Hebron, Me.
Higgins Charleston, Me.
Keystone Factoryville, Pa.
Maine Central Pittsfield, Me.
New Hampton New Hampton, N. H.
Parsonsfield Parsonsfield, Me.
174 AMERICA TOMORROW
Name of Academy Location
Peddie Hightstown, N. J.
Pillsbury Owatonna, Minn.
Ricker Houlton, Me.
Suffield Suffield, Conn.
Vermont Saxtons River, Vt.
Wayland Beaver Dam, Wis.
Western Pennsylvania . .Mount Pleasant, Pa.
Worcester Worcester, Mass.
Academic departments are also still maintained
by a few of our Western colleges for the purpose of
preparing students for the college classes. These
Christian schools of academic grade are maintained
for several different reasons. There are still some
sections of the country where the high-school facili-
ties are limited and where children must go away
from home if they are to secure an education. This
is true in the older parts of the country as well as
in the new. These children are much better off in
these Christian schools where they may live in the
dormitories and be under constant supervision, than
in the high schools of the county-seats and larger
towns where they must secure lodgings and are
not under supervision except during school hours.
Then again our high schools are becoming so
crowded that they are unable in many cases to give
adequate attention to the individual student, and
many parents prefer to send their children to the
academies where the classes are smaller and more
personal attention can be given. It is generally re-
cognized that the problem of providing adequate
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 175
housing facilities and sufficiently large staffs of
teachers for the rapidly increasing number of stu-
dents is one of the most serious that faces our towns
and cities today. Many of them are not able to cope
with the situation and give such an education as
the children deserve. Parents are recognizing this
in increasing numbers and are turning to these
Christian academies and other private schools for
the education which they desire their children to
have.
There is still a third reason which gives these
Christian schools an increasing place in our system
of American education. In these schools children
are under the watch-care of Christian teachers ; they
are surrounded by the best influences; their social
life and activities are directed ; their religious life is
trained. Many parents are becoming serious about
the problems which face their children during high-
school days, and they are looking to these Christian
academies for the solution.
In these and in other ways these Christian schools
of the high-school grade are making a distinct con-
tribution to making America a safer and a better
place for our boys and girls.
2. The second list of schools comprises the junior
colleges. This is a comparatively new name in edu-
cational nomenclature, and schools of this type have
a unique character. They combine portions and
characteristics of both the academy and the college.
Most of them give the last two years of the high-
school course and the first two years of the college.
Educators have long contended that the real break
176 AMERICA TOMORROW
in the educational process comes not at the end of the
present high-school course but at the end of the
second year in college, and that therefore these
two years ought to be added to the high-school
course. Further than this, it is recognized that
many young people are too young to be plunged into
the midst of college at the age of seventeen or
eighteen, and it is better for them to await its new
experiences until they are a bit older. The junior
college solves both these problems.
These junior colleges are just beginning to come
to their place in American education, but they are
coming very rapidly now. Many of the larger cities
are adding the first two years of college work to
their high schools and are finding their new classes
crowded full. Our Christian schools have shown the
way to this new type of American school.
Our list of such schools is not long but it includes
several fine institutions:
Name of Junior College Location
Broaddus Philippi, W. Va.
Colorado Denver, Colo.
Frances Shinier Mt. Carroll, 111.
Hardin Mexico, Mo.
Rio Grande Rio Grande, Ohio
Stephens Columbia, Mo.
3. The third division includes our colleges and
universities. Of these there are twenty-two dating
from 1765 to the late nineties and located from
Maine to California. They are our great contribu-
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 177
tion to making our youth better American citizens.
In them we have invested more than one hundred
million dollars and we are giving ah education to
more than twenty-five thousand students.
These institutions range all the way from small
colleges which are just getting on their feet, but
which nevertheless are earnestly striving to give
a good education and have loyal bodies and enthu-
siastic students, to our great universities, Brown and
Chicago. The University of Chicago, only about
thirty years old, is one of the largest and strongest
in the country. It has a wonderful location in the
heart of the city of Chicago, with a large campus
and many magnificent buildings.
The question again recurs, Why maintain these
expensive colleges when the state has so many great
universities? The reasons are the same as those
which justify the conduct of the Christian acade-
mies, only they are more urgent. The process of
education is exceedingly delicate. At the most im-
pressionable period of life our boys and girls are
introduced to a world of new facts which have
played no part in their lives before. Many of these
facts compel them to think the problems of life out
all anew. Not infrequently the process is almost
revolutionary, and yet in their progress from child-
hood to manhood and womanhood the change is in-
evitable.
Since this is so, it is exceedingly important that
these new experiences should take place in a Chris-
tian atmosphere, m a Christian environment, under
the watch-care of interested Christian teachers.
178 AMERICA TOMORROW
This contribution our Christian colleges, founded
and maintained by Baptists, are rendering to the
youth of America. We would cast no possible re-
flections upon our great state colleges and universi-
ties. They are rendering a service to America which
the church schools can never hope to render, because
of their wonderful equipment and their immense
funds. On the other hand these smaller Christian
colleges, hampered often with inadequate funds, are
able to offer to their students advantages which the
larger schools can not hope to give. With their
smaller and therefore more compact student bodies,
with their more carefully chosen staff of teachers
selected primarily because of their Christian charac-
ter, with traditions which are distinctly Christian,
they are able to bring influences to bear which tend
to steady their students in the period of storm and
stress and to hold high ideals steadily before the
students' minds, and they also seek to find the solu-
tion for the problems of life from the spirit and
teaching of Christ himself. When they are true
to their aim, they are seeking to bring the minds
of their students into harmony with the mind of
Christ.
There are no tests by which the influence of our
Baptist colleges can be measured, but as one studies
them in action he is impressed that they are render-
ing a vast service in making boys and girls true
to our great American and Christian ideals. These
institutions are rapidly exerting a broadening in-
fluence upon the religious, moral, intellectual, and
patriotic standards of our youth.
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 179
The list of our Baptist Colleges is as follows :
Name of College Location
Bates . . . . Lewiston, Me.
Brown Providence, R. I.
Bucknell Lewisburg, Pa.
Carleton Northfield, Minn.
Chicago Chicago, 111.
Colby Waterville, Me.
Colgate . . Hamilton, N. Y.
Denison Granville, Ohio
Des Moines Des Moines, Iowa
Franklin Franklin, Ind.
Grand Island Grand Island, Neb.
Hillsdale Hillsdale, Mich.
Kalamazoo Kalamazoo, Mich.
Keuka Keuka Park, N. Y.
Linfield McMinnville, Ore.
Ottawa Ottawa, Kans.
Redlands Redlands, Calif.
Rochester Rochester, N. Y.
Shepardson Granville, Ohio
Shurtleff Alton, 111.
Sioux Falls .Sioux Falls, S. Dak.
Vassar . : Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
William Jewell Liberty, Mo.
4. The fourth class of our institutions includes
our training-schools of which there are seven as
follows ;
180 AMERICA TOMORROW
Name of School Location
Chicago Chicago, 111.
Danish Des Moines, Iowa
International East Orange, N. J.
Kansas City Kansas City, Kans.
Philadelphia Philadelphia, Pa.
Norwegian Chicago, 111.
Spanish- American . . . .Los Angeles, Calif.
As will be readily understood these schools are
organized to train workers for the Christian church.
Three of them, Chicago, Kansas City, and Philadel-
phia, are conducted to train young women who speak
the English language, for positions as assistants in
the churches and as missionaries on the home field.
The school in Chicago is conducted by the Woman's
American Baptist Home Mission Society for the par-
ticular purpose of training their workers in the home
field. The other four schools train young men of
various nationalities to be pastors and missionaries
among their own people. These schools serve
directly to make better American boys and girls
of those who come from other lands with ideals and
standards different than our own. There are nearly
two hundred and fifty pupils enrolled in these seven
training-schools.
5. Our last list of schools is composed of our theo-
logical seminaries. Of these there are nine scattered
from Boston to Berkeley. These schools exist for
the definite purpose of training young men for the
ministry of the church, our pastors and our mission-
aries. These institutions have a definite relation to
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 181
"America Tomorrow." They are educating the re-
ligious leaders who are to present the ideals and to
train the boys and girls for better citizenship in the
America of tomorrow.
Name of School Location
Berkeley Berkeley, Calif.
Chicago Chicagb, 111.
Colgate Hamilton, N. Y.
Crozer Chester, Pa.
Kansas City Kansas City, Kans.
Newton Newton Center, Mass.
Northern Chicago, 111.
Rochester Rochester, N. Y.
Swedish St. Paul, Minn.
II. The Care of Baptist Students
In addition to these educational facilities which
we are furnishing to our Baptist young people, there
is another service which we are rendering which is
most significant. Not all our Baptist students by
any means attend our Baptist schools. There are
more Baptist students in our state universities than
there are in our Baptist colleges. They are drawn
there by many considerations.
These great institutions conducted by the state
are unable, by reason of our American laws, to make
any adequate provision for the religious care and
training of their students. By reason of our Amer-
ican principle of the separation of Church and State,
this obligation rests upon the Church and cannot
be assumed by the State. This means that until
182 AMERICA TOMORROW
recently there have been thousands of our young
people in these schools for whose religious care and
instruction no adequate provision had been made.
We should not longer disregard this fact.
About ten years ago the churches began to realize
something of their responsibility for the care of their
young people who had gone to the state schools,
and they cast about for some plan whereby they
might provide for them. As a result of their study
and experience, the various denominations are now
placing* at these universities their official representa-
tives whose task it is to care for the spiritual in-
terests of their young people. The Baptists have
entered into this work in a large way.
This work assumes various forms in accordance
with the local conditions. Sometimes an advanced
student is employed as an assistant to the pastor
of the local church and is charged with the respon-
sibility of looking up Baptist students and interest-
ing them in the Baptist church of the college town.
He invites them to church, brings them to the stu-
dent class in the Bible school, secures their at-
tendance at the social gatherings of the church,
and seeks to maintain their church affiliations. This
work demands the services of the most competent
men available.
In other cases where the local church is not finan-
cially able to maintain a strong pastor who can win
the attention of the students, the Board of Education
cooperates with the church in securing and support-
ing a capable minister who is charged with the re-
sponsibility of caring for the Baptist students,
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 183
The most common and most satisfactory method
of dealing with these student problems is the em-
ployment of a minister who devotes his whole time
to the interests of the students. He must be a man
who is intensely interested in young people and who
knows how to win their confidence and affection.
He keeps open house to the students. They are
welcome to " walk in " unbidden at any time. He
entertains them frequently in his home. He con-
ducts Bible classes for them, visits them in their
rooms, advises them with their problems, and is
their confidential friend and helper. He literally
lives in a house by the side of the road and is a
friend to every man. He is the " Big Brother " to
the students.
The value of the service which these men render
to our Baptist students is beyond all estimate. Testi-
mony constantly comes in from students and grad-
uates as to their gratitude for what the University
Pastors have meant to them. They have helped many
a student over a hard place, have led them out of
their periods of doubt and distress, have cheered
them in their days of homesickness, have kept warm
their interest in the Christian church, and have
helped them in their life decisions. Such a ser-
vice as this is not only praiseworthy but indispen-
sable.
Not the least service which the university pastors
are rendering the denomination is in training young
people for leadership in the churches and in direct-
ing others into the Christian ministry and into the
missionary service of the church. It used to be said
184 AMERICA TOMORROW
that we could not expect recruits for the ministry
from the state universities, but the university
pastors have disproved that claim. There are sev-
eral men in the seminaries today who have gone
into the ministry as a direct result of the work of
the university pastors, and a considerable number
are already on the mission field. It is a great invest-
ment which the denomination is making in its young
people through the university pastors.
We give the list of the institutions in which Bap-
tists have a definitely organized work, classified in
accord with the differentiation which we have just
outlined :
UNIVERSITY PASTORS
Cornell University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Michigan
University of Wisconsin
University of Illinois
University of Chicago
University of Nebraska
University of Kansas
University of Colorado
University of California
City of Boston (many institutions)
STUDENT SECRETARIES
Denison University
University of Indiana
Purdue University
Kansas State Agricultural College
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 185
PASTORS OF LOCAL CHURCHES
Bucknell University
University of Ohio
University of Minnesota
University of Iowa
Iowa Agricultural College
Iowa Teachers College
University of Washington
Rio Grande College
Des Moines University
University of Idaho
JOINT REPRESENTATIVES
(One or more denominations cooperating)
Vermont University
New Hampshire State College
Ohio State University
Michigan Agricultural College
Colorado School of Mines
University of Oregon
California Agricultural School
University of Maine
Massachusetts Agricultural College
One other important service to our Baptist stu-
dents remains to be mentioned that rendered by
our Baptist Student Secretaries. The Board of Edu-
cation maintains in the field two secretaries, one
man and one woman, who devote their time to the
visitation of the colleges. They address the student
bodies and hold personal conferences with the stu-
dents regarding their intellectual problems and
186 AMERICA TOMORROW
other problems of a personal character. In this
way they are rendering a service of inestimable
value to thousands of students.
We can in no way better reflect what these people
are doing than by quoting from some of the letters
that follow their visits. One president writes :
No speaker has ever come here who has gotten into the
consciousness of our students more effectively and speedily
than your Student Secretary. He takes the university point
of view without losing for a moment the evangelical and even
evangelistic point of view. He is in sympathy with the
modern scientific temper and yet finds in that temper new
reasons for devotion to the kingdom of God.
A college professor writes : " His timely information
and stimulating application of the truths of business
and wealth are helping to shape and mold the
thoughts and life of the students to whom he
speaks." A college dean writes : " He rendered a
superb service in the meetings which he conducted
here. I do not think that we have ever had a man
who gripped the students as he did." A student
news bureau issued the following statement to the
press :
From the opening address he gained the interest of the
students and throughout the week religion was the most
discussed subject on the campus. Day after day the care-
fully arranged messages followed each other, working out
with exact precision the harmony of God's truth in religion
and science, and with compelling logic the Bible as the Word
of God had clear presentation. Seldom has a speaker to
college men won so completely the confidence and following
of his hearers.
EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN 187
The pastor of a college church writes :
We had a great time with your Student Secretary. The
students were captivated from the first address. Many of
them spoke of their appreciation of his talks. I have never
heard more warmth and beauty put into the appeal to follow
Jesus, and that appeal, coming out of his fine, scientific
treatment of truth, made it irresistible. He can come back
any time you can send him to us.
These letters indicate something of the service
which is being rendered to our students in an eif ort
to help them find themselves in their new relations
and to adjust themselves in their attitude to Christ
and his truth.
It is most essential that the young men and women
who are now students in our great institutions and
who are soon to be the leaders of our American life,
should have a thorough education, should be well
trained, should cultivate high ideals, and should
emerge from their student days loyal to Christ and
his church. With the purpose of insuring these re-
sults the Baptists are maintaining their schools and
colleges, providing their university pastors, and
sending forth their student evangelists. This large
ministry will help to make possible a better "Amer-
ica Tomorrow."
X
MISSIONARY AGENCIES AMONG
YOUNG PEOPLE
X
MISSIONARY AGENCIES AMONG YOUNG
PEOPLE
1. WORLD WIDE GUILD
By ALMA J. NOBLE
The World Wide Guild is the answer to the future
of our Woman's Missionary Societies, both as to
leadership and intelligent constituency in the local
church. " Where there is no vision, the people per-
ish," and because some forward-looking women had
visions of latent possibilities in the girls and young
women of our Baptist denomination eight years ago,
the World Wide Guild came into being.
It was first organized under the Woman's Amer-
ican Baptist Foreign Mission Society, but after a
few weeks was affiliated also with the Woman's
American Baptist Home Mission Society. In 1920,
however, it was transferred to the Department of
Missionary Education but still preserves its contact
with the Woman's Societies through the World Wide
Guild Commission which is composed of represen-
tatives from each Society, the Secretary of the De-
partment of Missionary Education, and the World
Wide Guild and Children's World Crusade National
Secretaries.
At that time there were less than six hundred
missionary organizations for our Baptist girls ; now
there are 4,223 Chapters of the World Wide Guild,
with an approximate membership of 50,000. It is
191
192 AMERICA TOMORROW
not only world-wide in name and aim, but in per-
sonnel. Its constituency includes Chapters among
almost every European nationality in the United
States Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Roumanians,
Russians, Czechoslovaks, Germans, Swedes, Syr-
ians, Chinese and Japanese on the Pacific Coast,
Indians, and Negroes. In the Orient, India, Burma,
Japan, China, and the Philippine Islands all have
Chapters, while the Canadian Branch of the World
Wide Guild now numbers forty-four in the Mari-
time Provinces. It thus becomes a realized adven-
ture in international friendship and good-will.
There are two national officers, the Executive
Secretary, Miss Alma J. Noble, and the Field Secre-
tary, Miss Helen E. Hobart, who is the happy suc-
cessor of our much-loved Helen Crissman. One
recognized secret of the unparalleled success of the
World Wide Guild is its large corps of volunteer Sec-
retaries. There are fifty District and State Secre-
taries, besides one for every Association in each
State. This not only provides a valued force of pro-
motional officers, but by placing responsibility on
these willing Secretaries, some really great leaders
have been and are constantly being developed. Two
District Secretaries are now members of our national
Home and Foreign Boards, others are filling execu-
tive offices, and best of all, some are missionaries.
These all with one accord acknowledge their in-
debtedness to the World Wide Guild for their start in
assuming responsibility. It is gratifying to note the
growing response of the college girl to the appeal of
Guild work.
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 193
Another secret of its successful growth is that it
is being built on an educational foundation which is
bound to endure. These features include special
programs prepared on the current year's home and
foreign study-books, with five programs outlined for
each book. These programs are used by the ma-
jority of Guild Chapters. It is a gratifying fact,
however, that in addition to the above programs, in-
tensive mission-study classes are growing in pop-
ularity. The Reading Contest is the most outstand-
ing of these educational activities. The conditions
are rigid. Every member of a Chapter must read
five books individually one inspirational, two home,
two foreign and group reading is not allowed. In
spite of strict adherence to these conditions, more
and more Chapters qualify each year, two having
just completed the sixth year. One Chapter with an
active membership of sixty-seven has a two-year
record. The award for successful contestants goes
to the Chapter and is as follows: First year, Hof-
mann's " Head of Christ " ; second, Plockhorst's
"Good Shepherd"; third, " Sistine Madonna";
fourth, " Madonna of the Chair " ; fifth, " The Light
of the World." These are artotypes in sepia, 13 by
17 inches, and many Sunday schools, primary and
junior departments, not to mention missionaries,
have had these presented by the Guild Chapter. The
best of it all is that the reading is not limited to the
required five books, but interest has been so aroused
that many girls have not stopped with five but have
doubled the number. Thus a taste for the enjoyment
of missionary reading is being cultivated.
194 AMERICA TOMORROW
Essay and Theme Contests on an assigned topic,
relating to the home and foreign study topic for
the year, is another valuable feature, the award for
that being attendance at a summer school of mis-
sions as guest of the Department of Missionary Edu-
cation. Debates, story-telling, missionary dramat-
ics, and intelligence tests, have transformed the
proverbially dull missionary meeting into one so full
of live interest that the most indifferent and critical
have fallen victims to its charms.
A practical expression of enthusiasm based on
knowledge of needs is found in the White Cross
work for home and foreign missionaries; and the
practise of stewardship as a reasonable obligation of
any Christian girl has resulted in large numbers of
tithers,,a tangible expression of which was the as-
tonishing gift of $37,695 toward the Continuation
Campaign in 1921-22, all of which was in addition
to regular pledges to the New World Movement. The
quota for the year was $16,666, and the gift of the
World Wide Guild therefore exceeded the quota by
$21,029. While figures are not yet available, it is
apparent that their gifts will again exceed the quota
for 1922-23. When the Jubilee of the Woman's
Foreign Mission Society was celebrated in 1921, the
World Wide Guild contributed a special gift of
$12,085 for a dormitory for high and normal stu-
dents at Swatow, China.
State Guild rallies and house-parties have stimu-
lated the work greatly through mission-study classes
and methods. Many choice friendships have been
made. Often there are from three hundred to six
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 195
hundred girls present at these rallies, all eager to
participate in the kingdom enterprise, and to equip
themselves for real service.
The last thing to be mentioned is best of all. The
response of these girls to the spiritual aspects of
the World Wide Guild is spontaneous and earnest.
It is impossible to give statistics, but it is safe to
say that hundreds of Guild girls are volunteers for
definite missionary service either in the homeland or
in the Orient. Several are already in the field. This
attitude is largely due to the spiritual emphasis,
ideals of world service, devotional character of their
meetings, and the deepening of the prayer life of
the individual girl in her home and in the Chapter
meetings.
The World Wide Guild is recognized by other de-
nominations as well as our own as a most construc-
tive missionary organization for girls, which has
succeeded in popularizing Mission Study and in
developing an efficient leadership.
World-wide our vision and our aim,
In Thy great service glad and free;
Our aim, all other aims above
Dear Lord, to be worth-while to Thee.
/
2. THE CHILDREN'S WORLD CRUSADE
By MARY L. NOBLE
The thinking people of this day are turning with
noticeable unanimity to the hitherto undeveloped
resources of the world in its children. Dr. Susan
196 AMERICA TOMORROW
Kingsbury, of Bryn Mawr, a thoughtful student of
social problems, in speaking of the so-called " Youth
Movement " of Central Europe, says,
The task of the builders must chiefly be that of the young
with " their souls in the work of their hands," their dreams
and ideals with which they are bound to keep the faith, their
sense of duty, and a responsibility to those who shall come
after them.
With this same appreciation of the strategy of en-
listing the children of our churches in the missionary
enterprise of the denomination, the Children's World
Crusade was inaugurated in 1917 under the
Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society
and the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission
Society, and in 1920 was transferred to the Depart-
ment of Missionary Education of the Board of Edu-
cation. The two Woman's Boards still retain an
advisory relationship to the work.
In order to secure the support and cooperation of
children in any enterprise they must be informed of
the needs they are asked to relieve, the partners with
whom they are to work, and the result that they have
a right to expect will follow. The information con-
cerning world conditions, especially and always
with reference to the gospel of Jesus Christ, is pre-
sented in programs arranged from the Junior mis-
sion-study books each year. The Children's World
Crusade is responsible for the missionary education
of children under twelve years of age, and for peda-
gogical reasons divides them into three groups, with
plans and material suited to each group. The chil-
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 197
dren under six compose the Jewel Band, having one
meeting a year; from six to nine the children are
gathered in the Herald Band, having four meetings
yearly ; and from nine to twelve they form the Cru-
sader Company, with monthly meetings. Often
these Bands and Companies are correlated with the
departments of the Sunday school or other existing
organizations.
Besides the study and the programs, dramatiza-
tions and projects have been suggested for the local
leaders to develop.
Traveling libraries of over three hundred mission-
ary books are in circulation among the States and
are loaned to the local organizations for one month
at a time. This reading has been of untold value
and has resulted in offering to each State an award
picture to be given to the Company reading the most
books. Such pictures as Plockhorst's " Suffer Little
Children to Come Unto Me " are used as awards.
A stereopticon lecture on the Special Interests of
the Children's World Crusade was arranged and has
* been very largely used in local and general meetings.
The special interests are selected with the thought
of providing work in the home and foreign fields
which makes a special appeal to the children, to
which they may designate their gifts, and about
which story leaflets have been written.
Credit is given by a system of Honor Points for
the memorizing of the missionary passages of the
Bible, missionary hymns, loyalty to the Company,
and service.
Quoting Doctor Kingsbury again :
198 AMERICA TOMORROW
It will not do to try to coordinate the efforts and align
the sympathies of young people on a platform purely nega-
tive. They must be given something to do, not merely told
what not to do.
In recognition of the truth of this principle, sugges-
tions from the missionaries on the field were re-
quested as to what kind of handwork, lying within
the possibilities of children, would be valuable to
them. Thus the aim has been to provide the children
an opportunity for expressing their interest and
willingness to help with their hands, and the things
which they make with their own hands become gifts
of practical value in missionary service. White
Cross work has been introduced in each District and
is now well organized.
Not the least are the gifts of money which be-
speak sacrifice and self-denial. These had never
been stressed until the Continuation Campaign was
inaugurated. Attractive gift envelopes were fur-
nished, and the children were taught to respond to
the needs with their money as a natural expression
of their interest. When the entire denomination was '
facing a crisis in 1922, the children were enlisted
through the Children's World Crusade, and with the
slogan "A Foot of Dimes from Every Crusader,"
they brought in at the end of a three months' cam-
paign the sum of $11,000.
The visible results of the campaign for larger
missionary education among children are seen in the
tremendous increase in the number of missionary
organizations for children. There were less than
five hundred Children's Bands, and most of them
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 199
were Baby Bands, when the Children's World Cru-
sade was launched. There are now 2630 Children's
World Crusade organizations. The number of
junior missionary study-books used within Crusader
Companies has been greatly increased. A decidedly
active interest in the local churches has been aroused
in the children, and by the presentation of their
plays, pageants, programs, and rallies, parents and
adults of the church have been interested in a new
way.
The headquarters of the organization are at 218
Lancaster Avenue, Buffalo, N. Y., and 276 Fifth
Avenue, New York City. The Executive Secretary
is Miss Mary L. Noble, and the Field Secretary, Miss
Helen E. Hobart. The work is carried on with these
two exceptions by volunteer secretaries in the Dis-
tricts, States, and Associations. With these aims,
plans, helps, and helpers, the denomination is con-
fident that the world builders of the next generation
will face their task with more of the practical ideal-
ism of Jesus Christ and a larger spirit of Christian
brotherhood.
Just children on their way to school again?
Nay, it is ours to watch a greater thing
These are the World's Rebuilders, these must bring
Order to chaos, comforting to pain,
And light in blasted fields new fires of spring.
Dear Lord, Thy childish hands were weak and small,
Yet had they power to clasp the world withal;
Grant these, Thy little kindred, strength as true
They have so much to learn, so much to do!
200 AMERICA TOMORROW
3. THE BIBLE SCHOOL AS A MISSIONARY AGENCY
By WILLIAM A. HILL
" Give to our girls and boys a friendly acquain-
tance with the peoples of the world whom they
will recognize as God's great family, and it will
prove in later years a foundation for the great
superstructure of world peace and Christian mis-
sions."
Such words as these go right to the heart of our
question. The truest education consists not in the
imparting of information, but rather in the develop-
ing of mental attitudes and habits, which in turn
lead to the acquiring of information. At the meet-
ings of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, Rev.
W. H. Campbell, in speaking of the need of a science
of missionary education, said, " One of the most
pathetic facts in Christendom is the enormous wast-
age of endeavor lost as regards results, simply for
want of knowing how to set to work."
The Sunday school has the greatest possibilities
as a missionary nursery. Here the missionary ideas
should be so fostered that the child shall never think
of missions except as a perfectly natural and normal
thing. The slow growth of the importance of mis-
sions as a function of the Christian church, has had
its parallel in the development of Bible-school curri-
cula. The lack of attention to missionary education
in the Sunday-school lesson materials of the past,
led to the starting of many missionary organiza-
tions for various age groups within the church itself,
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 201
to supply that need. Many adult missionary socie-
ties grew up on account of this recognized omission.
It is therefore gratifying to know that the Inter-
national Sunday-school lesson material builders for
1923, devote the entire last quarter, October, Novem-
ber, and December, to the study of " The Missionary
Message of the Bible." This affords excellent
opportunity for the correlation of current denomina-
tional missionary material into the regular Sunday-
school lessons. The Department of Missionary
Education, in the preparation of its Graded Home
Missionary Stories for Baptist Bible schools for this
same quarter, has accordingly correlated its primary
and junior series of graded stories with the lessons
for this quarter.
For many years now these graded missionary
stories have been prepared for Bible schools. Pic-
ture poster charts, which exhibit the missionary
work of our Societies, are also prepared to accom-
pany the stories. These are usually provided in a
series of four charts and are intended for display
in the various departments of graded Sunday
schools. The increase in demand for these materials
justifies the place which they seem to have filled in
the educational scheme.
We dislike the classification which recognizes
Sunday schools as either antimissionary, non-mis-
sionary, nominally missionary, and moderately mis-
sionary, as though the program of Jesus could be so
differentiated. But missions is no longer a secon-
dary matter, it is primary. We have learned that
without missions, Christianity is not itself. This
202 AMERICA TOMORROW
means the dawn of a new day in our denomi-
national life.
If we are to build into our Sunday schools a
missionary program appropriate to the needs of the
hour, four things are necessary :
1. Pastors, Sunday-school superintendents, and
assistants should recognize its primacy.
2. Teachers' meetings should consider the matter
of missionary education as a vital, worthy, and
necessary Sunday-school objective.
3. Committees on religious education should aim
to curriculate missionary education into the
lessons in a more effective and concrete manner.
4. Reports of the character and content of mis-
sionary instruction are secured, and thus the
entire matter is properly emphasized and dig-
nified.
An older conception of missions classes it as
charity and benevolence. The newer conception re-
gards a knowledge of missions as a prerequisite of
Christian training. The older conception inclined
to deal largely with its own generation and suited its
methods to that attitude. The newer conception
takes into account the oncoming generations and the
painstaking cultivation among our children and
youth of a sympathetic, natural, and normal attitude
toward missions as inherent within the New Testa-
ment and necessary to the saving of the world.
It is most unfortunate that there are so many
persons in our churches who have to have a double
conversion, once to make them Christian and again
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 203
to make them missionary. We must somehow so
build our missionary education into the Sunday
school, that when a person is converted to Christ,
it will not be necessary later on to use dangerous
spiritual explosives to awaken in him an interest in
missions.
By the increased use of missionary materials al-
ready available and through the larger amount of
missionary story and illustrative matter distributed
throughout our lesson quarterlies and periodicals,
we anticipate larger results as we enter these human
harvest fields. A better America waits on our in-
creased interest and our more careful guardianship
of these infinite resources.
4. THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETY AS A MISSIONARY
AGENCY
By WILLIAM A. HILL
No one can possibly overestimate the importance
of the Young People's Society as a missionary force
in the life of the church. Here in the making is the
church of tomorrow, and within this group are
future pastors, missionaries, and Christian leaders
who must bear great responsibilities. Here will be
found the Livingstones, Wilberf orces, Morrisons, and
Grenfells. Here also are the potential teachers in
our schools, and here are our captains of industry.
Every age is one of transition, hence important,
but upon all of us just now is being pressed the signi-
ficance of international events. The careless train-
ing of our young people in such an hour as this
204 AMERICA TOMORROW
would be critical. Last year witnessed the largest
enrolment of students in the history of American
institutions of learning. More than ten thousand
students of foreign nationalities and residence are
enrolled in American colleges, and a new sympathy
and respect for other races is being developed. The
American press, less provincial since the close of the
World War, is furnishing a daily chronicle of world
happenings, and our stronger secular magazines are
now vying with our religious journals in the por-
trayal of missionary achievement. Colleges and
universities are assuming special support of mission-
ary work in foreign lands, thus adding a new dignity
to missionary service. The idea of a world of na-
tions living together in Christian friendliness is
rapidly gaining momentum. The hour seems to be
one of unusual importance for our young people,
and our educational program should be commen-
surate with the opportunity. We must not forget
that the supply of ministers and missionaries does
not come from the colleges and seminaries unless
that supply first comes from the preparatory schools,
and first of all from churches. This responsibility
for a better America and for a better world i must
rest finally upon our young people, and the societies
and churches in which they meet and where- they
receive their training should offer them a program
of world service built on the idea that "being a
Christian is identical with having Christ's breadth
of sympathy, intellectual outlook, and social values."
The special interest of the church in its young
people should be assured for three important rea-
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 205
sons : First, the church needs to pay more attention
to its young people if it would save its own life.
Secondly, the young people in answering the call of
a needy world, must have a sympathetic knowledge
of the peoples of all lands or they will not be loyal
to their generation. Thirdly, our America of To-
morrow, and the making of a better world, will
depend upon the missionary ideals and Christian
devotion with which our young people enlist their
interests and affections.
In planning our missionary education for the
young people, we must avoid the assumption that
missions must be administered to them in homeo-
pathic doses or in disguised capsules, in order to
produce benevolent results. This, we believe, is
entirely the wrong approach both to their intelli-
gence and to their interests. They will welcome
any expression of Christianity that is militant and
worthy, and missions have always possessed the
qualities of courage, adventure, heroism, and sacrifice
which appeal to their natures. Schemes of mission-
ary entertainment, catchy methods, and mechanical
devnes introduced among young people to awaken
interest in a program so vital as the program of
Christian missions, must ever fail. These can nevor
successfully be offered as a substitute for a strong
program of missionary reading and study. Devices
as such, however clever, may interest for the mo-
ment while they fail to make impressions worth-
the cause at stake.
Many of the societies of the B. Y. P. U. of A. and
Baptist societies of C. E. have already entered upon
206 AMERICA TOMORROW
consistent programs of missionary education, and
excellent results are being achieved. Special mis-
sionary libraries have been prepared by the Depart-
ment of Missionary Education, also reading courses.
Mission-study books of a very high character have
been provided, ^specially for the young people's
groups. During 1922-23 many societies enrolled
in mission-study classes, and in numerous churches
the young people have taken a large share in the
responsibilities for successful church schools of mis-
sions. Special missionary programs for use at the
monthly missionary meetings, and based on the
regular authorized topics, have been prepared by
the Department of Missionary Education in order
to introduce into the educational scheme specific
Baptist materials in connection with the current
interdenominational themes. Young people's so-
cieties which are producing the best results include
within their plan of cultivation mission study, mis-
sionary reading courses, stewardship training, de-
nominational education, life service meetings, and
summer conference participation.
Whatever the program is, and however it may be
made to function, it seems clear that we should
initiate a new campaign for the reading and study
of our splendid missionary literature. We have
turned over to the magazine and short-story writer
the responsibility for directing the reading of our
boys and girls, and they are discharging this obli-
gation well. Unless we are alert, the life stories,
and their heroic appeal, will cease to appear in our
juvenile libraries. A new urging of the importance
AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE 207
of reading missionary literature may help to raise
up that new army which is to take the world, in the
name of the King.
Our fathers in a wondrous age,
Ere yet the earth was small,
Insured to us an heritage,
And doubted not at all
That we, the children of their heart,
Which then did beat so high,
In later time should play like part
For our posterity . . .
Dear-bought and clear, a thousand year
Our father's title runs,
Make we likewise their sacrifice,
Defrauding not our sons!
JMt? 7
AUG 3G
KARJO
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
48 438 206